A Virtual Carrier Group (VCG) is a collection of virtual QAM carriers (RF channels) provisioned on a Logical Edge Device (LED).

Each VCG must have a unique name and ID, since it also assigns attributes such as TSID and output port number to the virtual QAM carriers. The output port number only needs to be unique per LED. However, TSID/ONID pair must be unique for the chassis.

The service type must be designated in each VCG and the encrypt command must be entered if the carriers are to be encrypted. Enabling the VCG to use encryption and service type designates that each QAM carrier listed in the VCG will consume a QAM encryption license and video service type license. The actual number of licenses consumed will be done at VCG binding operation and is also dependent on the QAM replication requirements.

For more information on how the licenses are consumed, see Cisco Smart Licensing for Video.

A Virtual Edge Input (VEI) is a customer assigned IP address that is used, from the Head End, as a destination IP address for unicast video IP packets. Each VEI will need to be configured with a routable IP address from within the customer's network.

A VEI is assigned within a Logical Edge Device. Each Virtual Carrier Group (VCG) is associated with one or more IP addresses that represent VEIs.

For GQI protocol, VEI must be configured under the LED, since GQI expects VEI to be able to reach any Virtual QAM carrier listed in the same LED. Again, for GQI protocol, there is a limit of five VEIs per LED.

For the table based protocol, VEI may be configured under the LED or under a VCG. If the VEI is configured under a VCG, it can only reach the virtual QAM carriers associated with that particular VCG.

During the VCG binding operation, each VEI IP address will be bound to a single Video IP interface.

You can isolate the video traffic from other network traffic using MPLS (Multiprotocol Label Switching) and VRF (Virtual Routing and Forwarding), by configuring the VRF name parameter in video-edge-input command.

Note	Do not use the same VEI IP address in multiple VRFs, as Head End video session management servers are not MPLS or VRF aware.

To verify the virtual carrier group configuration, use the show cable video virtual-carrier-group command as shown in the example below.

Router# show cable video virtual-carrier-group all
Number of Virtual Carrier Groups: 1
ID    Name   Input        Service-Distribution-Group   Logical-Edge-Device     Total     
             IP Address   Name                         Name                    RF-Channel
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
1     vcg-0    -            vcg                          vcgcast                 5

Before you begin

Since each VEI will need to be configured with a routable IP address from within the customer's network, choose the IP addresses to use prior to configuring the VEIs.

To configure virtual edge input, follow the steps below:

enable
configure terminal
cable video
virtual-carrier-group name [id] number
virtual-edge-input-ip ip-address [vrf vrf-name] input-port-number port-number
vcg vcg-name
active

To configure virtual edge input under logical edge device, follow the steps below:

enable
configure terminal
cable video
logical-edge-device name [id] number
protocol table-based
virtual-edge-input-ip ip-address [vrf vrf-name] input-port-number port-number
vcg vcg-name
active

To verify the virtual edge input configuration, use the show cable video logical-edge-device command as shown in the example below.

Router# show cable video logical-edge-device id 1
Logical Edge Device: led 
Id: 1
Protocol: GQI 
Service State: Active
Discovery State: Disable 
Management IP: 1.33.2.10 
MAC Address: c414.3c17.6000 
Number of Servers: 2
  Server 1: 1.200.1.193
  Server 2: 1.200.1.183
Reset Interval: 5
Keepalive Interval: 5	
Retry Count:3 
Number of Virtual Carrier Groups: 2 
Number of Share Virtual Edge Input: 1 
Number of Physical Qams: 94
Number of Sessions: 240 
No Reserve PID Range

Virtual Edge Input:	
Input Port    VEI	         Slot/Bay	Bundle	Gatewayy
ID            IP	                    ID     IP
-------------------------------------------------- 
1	            174.102.1.1  7/0	     -      -	--

Virtual Carrier Group:
ID	Name	 Total	Total	      Service-Distribution-Group	Service-Distribution-Groupup
         VEI   RF-channel  Name                       ID
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

1  vcg   0     28          sdg                        1
2  vcg-2 0     19          sdg                        1

Integrated	Physical Admin	Operational TSID	ONID	Output	VCG	SDG	Encryption		
Cable      QAM ID   State State                 Port   ID  ID  Capable
------------------------------------------------------------------------

7/0/0:1    1        ON    UP          29   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:2    2        ON    UP          30   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:3    3        ON    UP          31   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:4    4        ON    UP          32   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:5    5        ON    UP          33   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:6    6        ON    UP          34   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:7    7        ON    UP          35   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:8    8        ON    UP          36   1000 30     2   1   powerkey
7/0/0:9    9        ON    UP          37   1000 30     2   1   powerkey

Router# show ip arp vrf Video-VOD-Vrf
Protocol  Address          Age (min)  Hardware Addr   Type   Interface
Internet  174.102.1.1             -   12ab.0007.ce01  ARPA   Video7/0/0