Before You Begin
IMPORTANT: Read all reference content and prepare. ONLY use the procedure documented in Installation Tasks, or your installation will not work properly.
Be sure that you understand and have met the following prerequisites before you begin to install or upgrade the
Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software:
■Refer to the Release Notes for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director Release 6.3 for the latest information about hardware and software requirements, changes, important notes, and caveats for your software release.
■Determine if you have compatible media player models and firmware versions available.
The media player firmware images are not bundled with the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software. Download the firmware image separately. For more information about supported firmware versions, see the Release Notes for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director, Release 6.3.
■Be sure that you have a supported browser installed for access to Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director. See the Cisco Vision Content Planning and Specifications Guide, Release 6.3.
■To access the Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) for the software installation on a Cisco Integrated Management Controller (CIMC) server, see their documentation here.
–Your computer meets the minimum browser and Flash player requirements for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director, and also has Java 1.6 or later installed. The minimum Flash version is 22.0.0.209 (applies to both Mac OS and Windows).
–You have a laptop connection with access to the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server network.
–You have the IP address of the CIMC interface on the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server.
–You have the CIMC interface login credential. The default credential is admin and password.
Note: It is difficult to recover from an interrupted installation process if the installation shell is accidentally closed or the network drops. We strongly recommended that you use a server console connection method that does not pose a risk to the success of upgrade completion, if the session breaks during upgrade. You also can use a monitor and keyboard that are directly connected to the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server to log into the TUI.
To learn more about the KVM console and the CIMC interface, see the Cisco UCS C-Series Integrated Management Controller Configuration guide that corresponds to your server release at: http://www.cisco.com/c/en/us/support/servers-unified-computing/ucs-c-series-integrated-management-controller/products-installation-and-configuration-guides-list.html
■Assess your installation environment and see Overview of the Installation and Upgrade Process for more information and to find out what modules in this guide you should follow.
Hardware Prerequisites
You can install Release 6.3 on your own virtual machine to run the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software. Follow the requirements in this section to be sure that your virtual environment meets the minimum and tested specifications.
Release 6.3 introduces two more server profile deployment options. Now there is:
■Mini
■Small
■Standard
■Large
This section includes the following topics:
■Minimum Virtual Machine System Requirements for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
■VMware vSphere Tested Versions for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
■Restrictions for Virtual Machine Support
Minimum Virtual Machine System Requirements for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
Be sure that your configuration meets the minimum system requirements. This section details the minimum requirements for each deployment size.
Mini-Scale Server Deployment
For a mini-scale deployment, be sure that your configuration meets the minimum system requirements in Table 1 and supports a VMware virtual machine environment with a compatible vSphere version (See VMware vSphere Tested Versions for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director).
Note: Install Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers close to the DMPs that they operate with, such as at the remote venue edge. Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director communicates to the players over a LAN.
To maintain software licensing compliance, Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers must be installed in the following manner:
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet, or the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment.
Table 1 Minimum System Requirements for a Virtualized Environment Running Mini-Scale Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
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Two processors each equivalent to an Intel Xeon Processor E5-2640
(15 MB cache, 1.9 GHz clock, 7.20 GT/s Intel® QPI)
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Forward write (fwrite) operations per second
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Local attached SSD (RAID10)
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Small-Scale Server Deployment
For a small-scale deployment, be sure that your configuration meets the minimum system requirements in Table 2 and supports a VMware virtual machine environment with a compatible vSphere version (See VMware vSphere Tested Versions for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director).
Note: Install Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers close to the DMPs that they operate with, such as at the remote venue edge. Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director communicates to the players over a LAN.
To maintain software licensing compliance, Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers must be installed in the following manner:
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet, or the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment.
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment, or the remote server hardware is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet..
Table 2 Minimum System Requirements for a Virtualized Environment Running Smaller-Scale Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
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Two processors each equivalent to an Intel Xeon Processor E5-2640
(15 MB cache, 2.50 GHz clock, 7.20 GT/s Intel® QPI)
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Forward write (fwrite) operations per second
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Local attached SSD (RAID10)
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Standard-Scale Server Deployment
For a standard-scale deployment, be sure that your configuration meets the minimum system requirements in Table 3 and supports a VMware virtual machine environment with a compatible vSphere version (See VMware vSphere Tested Versions for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director).
Note: Install Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers close to the DMPs that they operate with, such as at the remote venue edge. Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director communicates to the players over a LAN.
To maintain software licensing compliance, Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers must be installed in the following manner:
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet, or the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment.
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment, or the remote server hardware is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet..
Table 3 Minimum System Requirements for a Virtualized Environment Running Standard-Scale Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
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Two processors each equivalent to an Intel Xeon Processor E5-2640
(15 MB cache, 2.50 GHz clock, 7.20 GT/s Intel® QPI)
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Forward write (fwrite) operations per second
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Local attached SSD (RAID10)
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Large-Scale Server Deployment
For a large-scale deployment, be sure that your configuration meets the minimum system requirements in Table 4 and supports a VMware virtual machine environment with a compatible vSphere version (See VMware vSphere Tested Versions for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director).
Note: Install Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers close to the DMPs that they operate with, such as at the remote venue edge. Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director communicates to the players over a LAN.
To maintain software licensing compliance, Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director servers must be installed in the following manner:
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director server is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet, or the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment.
■The Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software is installed on the customer’s choice of hardware that supports a VMware virtualized environment, or the remote server hardware is installed in a data center or in an enterprise data closet..
Table 4 Minimum System Requirements for a Virtualized Environment Running Large-Scale Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
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Two processors each equivalent to an Intel Xeon Processor E5-2640
(15 MB cache, 2.50 GHz clock, 7.20 GT/s Intel® QPI)
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Forward write (fwrite) operations per second
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Local attached SSD (RAID10)
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Table 5 provides additional information about the tested VM hardware and OS specifications to use when configuring a virtual machine to support Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director.
Table 5 Virtual Machine Hardware and OS Specifications Tested for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
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RedHat Enterprise Linux 7 (64-bit)
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LSI Logic Parallel or LSI Logic SAS
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VMware vSphere Tested Versions for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director
Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director has been tested with VMware ESXi, 6.7.0. Other versions should work, but they have not been tested.
Note: Any VMware license that does not allow your virtual machine to be set to the minimum requirements described in Table 5 is not supported.
Restrictions for Virtual Machine Support
Be sure that you consider the following restrictions before you configure a virtual machine environment for Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director:
■When using a virtual machine environment, Cisco Technical Support only provides support for the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software. No support is provided for third-party hardware or the virtual OS environment installed by the customer.
■We recommend a dual virtual machine environment to support a primary and backup server using the standard Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director backup/restore and failover tools.
■Cisco has not tested and does not provide support for any VMware tools in a Cisco Vision Director system. If your site chooses to use backup, recovery or other tools outside of the Cisco Vision Dynamic Signage Director software to manage your virtual machines, you accept the risks and responsibility associated with securing your data.