Specifications

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Cisco Internet Streamer CDS 2.0-2.3 Software Configuration Guide
OL-13493-04
Chapter 1 Product Overview
Content Delivery System Architecture
As part of the network management process, the administrator can perform basic administration
operations on the Internet Streaming CDSM database, including backup and restore.
Device Management
The Internet Streaming CDSM sends device configuration changes to the selected device or group of
devices once the change has been submitted. The device sends any configuration changes that were made
locally to the CDSM, and also provides periodic status information.
Devices can be organized into user-defined device groups, which allow administrators to apply
configuration changes and perform other group operations on multiple devices simultaneously. Because
a device can belong to multiple device groups, this reduces the management overhead of the
administrator. Device groups allow for a single instance of management thus eliminating the need to
repeat the same step for each device.
The Internet Streaming CDSM also provides an automated workflow to apply software upgrades to the
devices in a device group.
Higher Storage Utilization of CDS
Storage across multiple Service Engines is virtually divided into buckets where each Service Engine
serves only a subset of the total content. Both the local storage and RAM of the Service Engines can
function as an aggregated distributed service, providing unlimited scalability. Linear scaling of the CDS
storage is accomplished by adding more Service Engines to one location. This addresses the demands of
the “Long Tail” use case relevant to the Service Engines. The Long Tail is the realization that the sum
of many small markets is worth as much, if not more, than a few large markets. Long-tail distribution is
the possibility that extremely infrequent occurrences in traffic are more likely than anticipated.
This higher storage utilization provides the following:
• Overall better system performance
• Higher in-memory cache hit ratio
• Deterministic resiliency in case of failures or overload due to very popular content (This is useful
when customers have live, prefetched, and cached assets more than 4.5 terabytes of content on one
Service Engine.)
The content distribution is resilient and stateless. If the load of all content mapped to one Service Engine
increases, the load is automatically spread to other Service Engines without requiring any administrator
intervention.
Delivery Services Management
The Internet Streaming CDSM provides the configuration and monitoring of delivery services, which
defines how content is ingested, stored, cached, and published. The Internet Streaming CDSM provides
the Service Engines with information about the delivery services and which Service Engines are
participating in the delivery service.
In addition to using the Internet Streaming CDSM to define delivery services, an XML file called a
Manifest file can be used to define a delivery service. The Manifest file and APIs serve as the basis for
backoffice integration. For more information about the Manifest file, see the “Manifest File” section on
page 2-5.