Consider a broadcast network with two identical signal pipelines: Pipeline #1 is on-air, while Pipeline #2 is off-line, but configured to automatically take over should anything go wrong with Pipeline #1. A typical use of iControl would be to create one virtual alarm to indicate a problem on either pipeline, and another to monitor the status of the signal, regardless of which pipeline is in use.

The first virtual alarm would use a pessimistic logic table to compare the status of each pipeline. If both pipelines show GREEN, the virtual alarm shows GREEN. If, however, either pipeline develops a critical error, the virtual alarm would turn RED.

The second virtual alarm would use an optimistic logic table to compare the status of the signal on both pipelines. As long as the signal is active on either Pipeline #1 or #2, the virtual alarm would remain GREEN.