Specifications

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Cisco TV CDS 2.5 ISA Software Configuration Guide
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Chapter 1 Product Overview
Overview
• One or more Stream Groups each consisting of one or more Streamers. The Stream Group is
responsible for the personalization and streaming of content in response to user requests. The
number of Streamers and Stream Groups is determined by the number of streams deployed and by
the topology that best suits your individual network and redundancy requirements.
• The CDSM is used to manage the Vaults, Streamers, and Caching Nodes in the same array, collects
event logs, and provides reporting tools.
Note In smaller systems, the Integrated Streamer-Vault (ISV) server can be used, where the Vault and
Streamer functionalities exist in one ISV server.
The Cisco TV VVI solution has four major elements:
• One or more Vault Groups consisting of one or more Vaults. The Vaults are responsible for ingest
and reliable storage of video on demand (VOD) content. The number of Vaults in the Vault Group,
and the number of Vault Groups is driven by the amount of content that the system offers and the
degree of redundancy.
• One or more Cache Groups, consisting of one or more Caching Nodes. The Caching Nodes provide
more flexibility in designing a multi-tiered Virtual Video Infrastructure (VVI) by acting as a tier
between the Vaults and the Streamers. The Caching Nodes facilitate content distribution and remove
distribution traffic from the network backbone.
• One or more Stream Groups each consisting of one or more Streamers. The Stream Group is
responsible for the personalization and streaming of content in response to user requests. The
number of Streamers and Stream Groups is determined by the number of streams deployed and by
the topology that best suits your individual network and redundancy requirements.
• The CDSM is used to manage the Vaults, Streamers, and Caching Nodes in the same array, collect
event logs, and provide reporting tools. In a split-domain management system configuration, there
is a Stream Manager that manages all the Streamers, and a Virtual Video Infrastructure Manager
(VVIM) that manages all the Vaults and Caching Nodes.
TV CDS Software
The Cisco TV CDS kernel software, known as the CServer, creates a logical network that pools, load
balances, and coordinates the physical resources of the CDEs, so that the whole network operates and is
managed as if it is a single resource.
The CServer facilitates the rapid movement of content between Vaults and Streamers while keeping
required bandwidth to a minimum. To accomplish this, the Cisco TV CDS software uses a proprietary
protocol, the Cache Control Protocol (CCP), across the gigabit Ethernet networks. All content is held
reliably on the Vault servers and a large amount, but not all, of the content is also contained on the
Streamer servers. Cisco CCP, a multilayered caching architecture, along with associated software
algorithms ensures that content segments are delivered only to the Streamers where there is demand for
that content. The TV CDS software monitors the frequency of subscriber demand and places content
appropriately in either the dynamic random access memory (DRAM) or disk cache of the serving
Streamer.
Content is delivered across the network in response to cache-fill calls from the Streamers in an
opportunistic manner, depending on the availability of bandwidth; delivery can be faster than real-time
delivery where bandwidth allows. The TV CDS software ensures content on the Streamer servers is
always the most popular content; that is, the content requested by the largest number of subscribers. User
requests are generally served from the cache on the Streamer. Requests for content that are not already