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Table Of Contents
Release Notes for Cisco Internet Streamer
CDS 2.4.1Flash Media Streaming Wholesale Licensing
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
Release Notes for Cisco Internet Streamer
CDS 2.4.1
These release notes cover Cisco Internet Streamer CDS Release 2.4.1-b4.
Revised: July 2009,OL-19658-01Contents
The following information is included in these release notes:
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Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
New Features
Release 2.4 of the Cisco Internet Streamer CDS introduces the following new features:
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Note
Flash Media Server 3.5
As part of Flash Media Server 3.5, multi-bit rate (MBR) is supported. Multi-bit rate streaming, also known as dynamic streaming. Dynamic streaming offers the ability to adjust the bit rate used to stream video to clients in order to adapt to changes in network conditions.
Flash Media Streaming Wholesale Licensing
Release 2.4.1 supports wholesale licensing of Flash Media Streaming in conjunction with the perpetual license. The wholesale license allows for additional bandwidth for a specified period of time. Periodic notification beings at three months, and continues to last day, before the license expires.
Authorization Service
When Authorization Service is enabled, client requests from unknown hosts are blocked by default. The Authorization Service verifies that all client requests have a Router Fully Qualified Domain Name (RFQDN) or origin server that is recognized as part of a delivery service.
Enhancements
Table 1 describes the enhancements to Internet Streamer CDS 2.4.1.
Release 2.4.1 supports the CDE220 2G2 platform. See the "System Requirements" section for more information.
Note
System Requirements
The Internet Streamer CDS runs on the CDE100, CDE200, CDE205, and the CDE220 hardware models. Table 2 lists the different device modes for the Cisco Internet Streamer CDS software, and which CDEs support them.
Table 2 Supported CDEs
CDSM
Yes
No
Yes
No
SR
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
SE
No
Yes
Yes
Yes
Release 2.4.1 supports the CDE220 2G2 platform. There are a total of ten gigabit Ethernet ports in this CDE. The first two ports (1/0 and 2/0) are management ports. The remaining eight gigabit Ethernet ports can be configured as one port channel. See the Cisco Content Delivery Engine CDE205/220/420 Hardware Installation Guide for set up and installation procedures for the CDE220 2G2.
The CDE100 can run as the CDSM, while theCDE200 can run as the Service Router or the Service Engine. See the Cisco Content Delivery Engine CDE100/200/300/400 Hardware Installation Guide for set up and installation procedures for the CDE100 and CDE200.
The CDE205 can run as the CDSM, Service Router, or Service Engine. See the Cisco Content Delivery Engine CDE205/220/420 Hardware Installation Guide for set up and installation procedures for the CDE205.
Note
Limitations and Restrictions
This release contains the following limitations and restrictions:
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Note
The CDS does support clients that are behind a NAT device or firewall that have shared external IP addresses. In other words, there could be a firewall between the CDS network and the client device. However, the NAT device or firewall must support RTP/RTSP.
Important Notes
To maximize the content delivery performance of a CDE200, CDE205, or CDE220, we recommend you do the following:
1.
Configure interfaces on the quad-port gigabit Ethernet cards into a single port-bonding interface. Use this bonding channel, which provides instantaneous failover between ports, for all client-facing traffic. Use interfaces number 1 and 2 (the two on-board Ethernet ports) for intra-CDS traffic, such as management traffic, and configure these two interfaces either as standby or port-channel mode. Refer to the Cisco Internet Streamer CDS 2.4 Software Configuration Guide for detailed instruction.
2.
Assuming ether-channel (also known as port-channel) is used between the upstream router/switch and the SE for streaming real-time data, the ether-channel load balance algorithms on the upstream switch/router and the SE should be configured as "Src-ip" and "Destination IP" respectively. Using this configuration ensures session stickiness and general balanced load distribution based on clients' IP addresses. Also, distribute your client IP address space across multiple subnets so that the load balancing algorithm is effective in spreading the traffic among multiple ports.
Note
3.
The CDE200, CDE205, or CDE220 performance has been optimized for HTTP and WMT bulk traffic, individually. While it is entirely workable to have mixed HTTP and WMT traffic flowing through a single CDE200 simultaneously, the aggregate performance may not be as optimal as the case where the two traffic types are separate, especially when the traffic volume is high. So, if you have enough client WMT traffic to saturate a full CDE200, CDE205, or CDE220 capacity, we recommend that you provision a dedicated CDE200 to handle WMT; and likewise for HTTP. In such cases, we do not recommended that you mix the two traffic types on all CDE servers which could result in suboptimal aggregate performance and require more CDE200, CDE205, or CDE220 servers than usual.
4.
If your deployment must have Streamers handle HTTP and WMT traffic simultaneously, it is best that you configure the Streamer to limit each of its HTTP sessions below a certain bitrate (for example, 1Mbps, 5Mbps, or the typical speed of your client population). This prevents HTTP sessions from running at higher throughput than necessary, and disrupting the concurrent WMT streaming sessions on that Streamer. To turn on this pacing feature, use the HTTP bitrate field in the CDSM Delivery Service GUI page.
Please be aware of the side effects of using the following commands for Movie Streamer:
Config# movie-streamer advanced client idle-timeout <30-1800>Config# movie-streamer advanced client rtp-timeout <30-1800>These commands are only intended for performance testing when using certain testing tools that do not have full support of the RTCP receiver report. Setting these timeouts to high values causes inefficient tear down of client connections when the streaming sessions have ended.
For typical deployments, it is preferable to leave these parameters set to their defaults.
5.
Open Caveats
This release contains the following open caveats:
Windows Media Streaming
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Symptom:
Windows Media Streaming core dumps during longevity testing.
Conditions:
When multiple bit-rates, live, VOD, and protocols are used and a server-side playlist (SSPL) is used as the live source.
Workaround:
None.
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Symptom:
Some of the Windows Media files are partially cached during stress testing of cache misses for unique content.
Conditions:
When Windows Media Streaming Fast Cache is disabled.
Workaround:
Enable Fast Cache on the Devices > Application Control > Windows Media Streaming > General Settings page.
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Symptom:
Windows Media Streaming core dumps during testing of live streaming.
Conditions:
This happens when a server-side playlist (SSPL) source is used and automation scripts are used as clients.
Workaround:
None.
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Symptom:
Multiple stale outgoing sessions are displayed for the show statistics wmt streamstat command.
Conditions:
When an SSPL broadcast publishing point is stopped and a managed live Windows Media Streaming program is scheduled.
Workaround:
Stale sessions are removed periodically and do not impact streaming. Alternatively, you can enable the SSPL broadcast publishing point source.
Flash Media Streaming
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Symptom:
The FMS core process generates a core dump file.
Conditions:
The core dump occurs once in awhile during high-stress scenarios (that is, when the CPU and disk thresholds are reached). The high-stressed scenario is coupled with both cache-hit and cache-miss traffic for MPEG-4 VOD Flash Media Streaming.
Workaround:
Set the disk and CPU thresholds to 80 percent, so that the system will not get overloaded (SR will not redirect any requests when threshold is reached) (Default is 80 percent).
(config)# service-router service-monitor threshold cpu 80(config)# service-router service-monitor threshold disk 80Set all debug level to default.
# no debug all set logging level to notice# sh loggingSyslog to host is disabled.Syslog to console is disabledPriority for console logging is set to: noticeSyslog to disk is enabledPriority for disk logging is set to: noticeFilename for disk logging is set to: /local1/syslog.txtSyslog facility is set to *Syslog disk file recycle size is set to 100000000•
Symptom:
The show stat flash-media-streaming command does not show the statistics, but says the command has timed out.
Conditions:
This happens during some unknown situation, so far in nine months it has been seen three times. When the show stats flash-media-streaming command was run frequently, this issue may occur.
Workaround:
Currently, there is no workaround, except to restart the Flash Media Streaming protocol engine or restart the Service Engine.
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Symptom:
Flash Media Streaming edge server process keeps printing syslog message on console during SR RTMP performance test.
Condition:
Performance test conditions.
Workaround:
This syslog message occurs some times when Flash Media Server is not able to shutdown properly. This is not harmful message and only occurs during the fms disable command.
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Symptom:
If the maximum bandwidth for Flash Media Streaming is reduced, Flash Media Streaming does not honor the configuration for first two minutes after the configuration change.
Conditions:
This issue is seen whenever the Flash Media Streaming maximum bandwidth configuration is changed.
Workaround:
There is no workaround, but the new configuration takes affect two minutes (maximum) after the configuration has been changed. This is because Flash Media Streaming checks the bandwidth once every 120 seconds.
CDSM
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Symptom:
When an SE is reloading, the Flash Media Streaming Wholesale License page in the CDSM does not respond, the page is blank for several seconds, and a warning dialog box displays, "The creation/modification will not proceed."
Workaround:
None. The issue does not impact the functionality of the CDSM. All pages except the Wholesale License page, are responsive.
None. The CDSM recovers after about five minutes.
Platform
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Symptom:
The link state of a switch port is always "up" when connected to a gigabit Ethernet over optical fiber interface on the SE. Depending on how the port channel and load-balancing are configured, this may cause the switch to send packets to a shut down interface on the SE.
Conditions:
When the shutdown command is manually entered on a gigabit Ethernet over optical fiber interface
Workaround:
Manually shut down the corresponding interface on the switch.
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Symptom:
Changing the time zone to "daylight savings" (or "summer time") does not take affect.
Condition:
Although the Internet Streamer CDS supports time-zone adjustments, changes to "daylight savings" (or "summer time") do not occur "on-the-fly."
Workaround:
To have the time-zone change for "daylight savings" (or "summer time") take affect, reload the server.
Acquisition and Distribution
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Symptom:
CDNFS usage shows used storage on a Service Engine that has been unassigned from all delivery services.
Condition:
Content not removed from Service Engine that has been unassigned from all delivery services.
Workaround:
Use the cdnfs cleanup start command to remove the content that remained after unassigning the SE from all delivery services.
Resolved Caveats
The following caveats have been resolved since Cisco Internet Streamer CDS Release 2.3.9 Not all the resolved issues are mentioned here. The following list highlights the resolved caveats associated with customer deployment scenarios.
Flash Media Streaming
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Symptom:
Flash Media Streaming allows a user to publish a stream, which replaces an existing published stream.
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Symptom:
Streaming freezes once in awhile when Content Origin server is busy.
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Symptom:
Flash Media Streaming does not send StreamNotFound or PlayFalied to the client.
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Symptom:
A request for live Flash Media Streaming goes into a loop from one SE to another.
SE1(edge SE) ---> SE2(location leader) ---> SE1 (edge SE)
The show flash-media-streaming livestreams command on SE1 shows SE2 as the forwarder, and SE2 shows SE1 as the forwarder.
Condition:
This happens on a rare condition, and it is only expected under the following circumstances:
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The probability of experiencing this problem is the following:
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Symptom:
For pre-positioned MPEG-4 files, the show statistics flash-media-streaming command shows the reads as happening by way of HTTP.
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Symptom:
The Flash Media Streaming concurrent connection count keeps increasing, even if the client disconnects. Sometimes Flash Media Streaming is not receiving the disconnect events. This may result in the SR not considering this SE when forwarding requests.
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Symptom:
When an RTMP request specifies port 1935, the request fails.
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Symptom:
When an RTMP request with a signed URL is sent from the portal to the SE, even if the file is pre-positioned on the SE, the SE proxies the request and fills the cache with the content.
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Symptom:
The statistics displaying current live and VOD connections may fluctuate during stress testing. It does not have any adverse effect on the stream quality or transaction logs. These are just informational statistics and their inaccuracies have no operational or performance impact.
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Symptom:
The Flash Media Streaming statistics that display the current live connections do not get updated after the statistics have been cleared. More detailed information and statistics on active live streams are not affected by this issue. The current live connections counters show a value of zero until the Flash Media Server statistics fluctuation subsides.
Movie Streamer
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Symptom:
Client attempts to open a unicast SDP URL to the SE. The client receives an RTSP 415 error code, "Unsupported Media Type."
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Symptoms:
When a large number of live programs are streaming while there is mixed traffic being streamed and downloaded, after approximately ten hours the stream-scheduler core dumps on the Service Engine.
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Symptom:
When multiple Movie Streamer live programs are running in the CDS, stopping the encoder of one of the live programs results in resetting the other live programs.
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Symptom:
Restarting or failing over encoders for a live Movie Streamer program may result in lower quality video. This can include no video, video artifacts, or lost frames.
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Symptom:
When a live program name is changed for an existing program, the CDS may fail to modify the program parameters and a client may fail to request this program using the correct Unicast Reference URL. Clients attempting to open a unicast SDP URL for a live program that has had a name change, receive the RTSP 415 error code, "Unsupported Media Type."
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Symptom:
Adding or deleting Service Engines to or from a live delivery service while a live program is ongoing, causes system resource leaks and may cause system instability over time.
Windows Media Streaming
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Symptom:
The RTSP Gateway should ignore the trailing spaces to prevent it from searching a URL with the extension ".sdp%20" and sending an unsupported media error.
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Symptom:
Need to increase listen queue on the RTSP Gateway to allow for a higher ramp-up rate.
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Symptom:
Many wmt_mbe core files were found on an SE being used in a customer trial.
CDSM
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Symptom:
Choose Application Control > Flash Media Streaming > General Setting. Click Apply Default, the License Agreement page does not display.
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Symptom:
Try to create multiple MIB name associations with a single MIB-view in the CDSM Devices > General Settings > Notification and Tracking > SNMP > View. Creating a second association results in an error message stating the view with name <viewname> is already available, and the configuration is refused. A core dump of cfg_bin_snmp_view occurs on the SE, SR, or CDSM.
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Symptom:
Retrieving the replication status of a device is not optimal. Clicking the Force replication information refresh icon displays a dialog box asking to confirm the refetch, and the request is queued. Using the Go button refreshes the status only if you enter something new in the content items using Search Criteria field.
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Symptom:
In some rare instances, when the system is in a stress test, a java core file is generated. The CDSM GUI restarts in less than 30 seconds and alarm is generated stating a core file is generated.
Acquisition and Distribution
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Symptom:
Pre-positioning content to receiver SEs can sometimes be interrupted. This causes the UniReceiver process to put the SE to go into KDB mode.
CLI
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Symptom:
Core dump of 'standby' process is found.
Condition:
Run a long performance stress test, after one or two days, the core file is found.
SNMP
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Symptom:
The SNMP Host MIB for the CPU memory and disk usage use the wrong metric.
Content Acquirer
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Symptom:
The Content Acquirer goes into KDB mode.
Upgrading to Release 2.4.1
The only supported upgrade paths are Release 2.3.x to Release 2.4.1. If you are running a release prior to Release 2.3.x, you must upgrade to Release 2.3.x before upgrading to Release 2.4.1.
Note
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Documentation Updates
The following documents have been updated for this release:
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The following documents have been added for this release:
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Related Documentation
Refer to the following documents for additional information about the Cisco Internet Streamer CDS 2.4:
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cda/is/2_4/configuration_guide/is_cds24-cfguide.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cda/is/2_4/quick_guide/ISCDSQuickStart.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cda/is/2_4/developer_guide/is_cds_24_apiguide.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cda/is/2_4/command_ref/Command_Ref.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cda/is/2_4/message_guide/Messages.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/overview/CDS_Roadmap.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cde/installation/guide/CDE_Install_Book.html
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http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/video/cds/cde/regulatory/compliance/CDE_RCSI.html
The entire CDS software documentation suite is available on Cisco.com at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7127/tsd_products_support_series_home.html
The entire CDS hardware documentation suite is available on Cisco.com at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/products/ps7126/tsd_products_support_series_home.html
Obtaining Documentation and Submitting a Service Request
For information on obtaining documentation, submitting a service request, and gathering additional information, see the monthly What's New in Cisco Product Documentation, which also lists all new and revised Cisco technical documentation, at:
http://www.cisco.com/en/US/docs/general/whatsnew/whatsnew.html
Subscribe to the What's New in Cisco Product Documentation as a Really Simple Syndication (RSS) feed and set content to be delivered directly to your desktop using a reader application. The RSS feeds are a free service and Cisco currently supports RSS version 2.0.
This document is to be used in conjunction with the documents listed in the "Related Documentation" section.
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