Administrator Guide for Cisco Show and Share 5.2.x

Set Up File Hosting Locations

•Concepts

•Procedures

Concepts

Understand the Basics

•What Is a File Hosting Location?  page 1

•What Happens When I Publish Locally on a Show and Share Appliance?  page 1

Understand Mandatory and Optional Settings

•Which File Host Location Values Are Mandatory?  page 2

•Which File Host Settings Are Optional?  page 2

Learn How to Choose Among Server Types

•Which External Server Types Are Most Appropriate?  page 2

What Is a File Hosting Location?

A file hosting location is where Cisco Show and Share stores its published files. By default, Cisco Show and Share stores uploaded videos, transcripts, files, and slides locally on the appliance. However, you can designate external servers to store and serve the files based on file type. We recommend as a best practice that you always store files externally.

What Happens When I Publish Locally on a Show and Share Appliance?

When you publish all files locally, Cisco Show and Share deliver files directly from the appliance, the following methods:

•RTMP for FLV, H.264, and MP4.

•HTTP for WMV, MP3, and all non-streaming assets.

Alternatively, we also support hybrid deployments, in which you publish only some files locally. You might do this, for example, until you can provision additional servers in your network. In this case, we publish everything locally except the file types for which you have defined external hosts.

Which File Host Location Values Are Mandatory?

If you publish some or all files to an external hosting location, you must define a Default Hosting Location. The Default Hosting Location is the location used for file types that you have not defined specifically (see Which File Host Settings Are Optional?).

The following table provides guidelines for the Default Hosting Location:

Which File Host Settings Are Optional?

Elements within these drawers help you to specify distinct, external file hosting locations for each asset type that you plan to host.

•H.264 Hosting Locations

•MP3 Hosting Location

•Windows Media Hosting Location

•FLV Hosting Location

You only need to define these locations if they are differ from your Default Hosting Location. When you define a hosting location for a specific file type, that location is used instead of the Default Hosting Location.

Which External Server Types Are Most Appropriate?

•Which Server Type Should Host FLV Files?  page 3

•Which Server Type Should Host MP4 and H.264 Files?  page 3

•Which Server Type Should Host WMV Files?  page 3

•Which Server Type Should Host MP3  page 3

Which Server Type Should Host FLV Files?

It is recommended that you use a Flash streaming server as the external file hosting location for FLV videos.

You can use an ordinary webserver if your site will have very few users. However, if you host FLV videos on a web server, note the following:

•You should disable the video editor (see Disable Video Editing). The Cisco Show and Share video editor uses non-destructive editing. This means that the original video remains intact and pointers and markers are used to create the edited version. This type of editing requires a streaming server to play correctly. If you publish an edited file to a non-streaming server, the file will play back in its unedited form.

•Trying to replay an FLV video right after it finishes can result in a 20-40 second delay before it starts again.

The following Flash streaming servers passed our tests:

•Wowza Media Server Pro 1.7.2
http://www.wowzamedia.com

•Adobe Flash Media Server
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/

•Cisco ECDS 2.5.x
http://www.cisco.com/go/ecds

Which Server Type Should Host MP4 and H.264 Files?

The external file hosting location for MP4 and H.264 videos should be a streaming server, ideally, and not merely a webserver.

These servers passed our tests:

•Wowza Media Server Pro 1.7.2
     http://www.wowzamedia.com

•Cisco ACNS for MP4 Streaming
     http://www.cisco.com/go/acns

Which Server Type Should Host WMV Files?

We recommend that you use a Windows Media streaming server. These servers passed our tests:

•Webserver

•Microsoft Windows Media Services
     http://www.microsoft.com/windows/windowsmedia/forpros/server/server.aspx

•Cisco ACNS for WMV Streaming
     http://www.cisco.com/go/acns

Which Server Type Should Host MP3

You can use the following types of serverst to host MP3 files:

•Webserver

•Wowza Media Server Pro 1.7.2
http://www.wowzamedia.com

•Adobe Flash Media Server
http://www.adobe.com/products/flashmediaserver/

Other Files

Use a webserver for other files, such as .zip files uploaded as attachments.

Limitations and Restrictions

Even if you specify and external server for Flash and MPEG-4 (.flv, .mp4, .m4v) videos, Cisco Show and Share maintains a local copy of that video to allow for future editing of the video. In high volume deployments, this can cause the Cisco Show and Share drive to become full. To avoid this, you can upload videos directly to the external server and then refer to the video using a URL when adding it to Cisco Show and Share. You will not be able to edit videos uploaded with this method.

Note Cisco Show and Share also maintains two copies of Flash and MPEG-4 videos published videos when set to local storage—the published version and a copy for future editing.

If you change file hosting locations when you have existing content in Cisco Show and Share, the content will still appear in the video lists, the system will report that the videos cannot be found. This is because Cisco Show and Share is looking for the videos in the new hosting location. You must migrate your videos to the new location before changing hosting locations. It is strongly recommended that you set up your final hosting location before deploying Cisco Show and Share to your organization.

Procedures

•Define External File Hosting Locations

•Prepare a Web Server for Externally-Hosted Transcript Files

Configure Local File Hosting

By default, Cisco Show and Share uses local file hosting. Typically you will not need to perform this procedure unless you are using local file hosting and you change the AAI password. This procedure shows you how to reenable local file hosting.

Procedure

Step 1 Log in to Cisco Show and Share using an administrator account.

Step 2 Choose Administration from the global navigation.

Step 3 If not already there, click Setup > Show and Share.

Step 4 Check the Publish locally to checkbox.

Step 5 Enter the AAI admin password in the Password field.

Step 6 Click Verify Password.

If you entered an incorrect password, you receive the message "URL Test Failed". Reenter your password and try again. If you entered the correct password, you receive the message "URL Test Pass".

Define External File Hosting Locations

Note The DeployLocalConfig Hosting Location drawer contains the Default Hosting location settings.

Procedure

Step 1 Use your browser to log in to your Cisco Show and Share appliance as its superuser.

Step 2 Choose Administration from the global navigation.

Step 3 Choose Setup > Show and Share.

Your browser loads the File Hosting Locations page. In the default state for this page, a check box with the label "Publish locally to <Show_and_Share_appliance_FQDN>" is checked.

Step 4 Uncheck the Publish locally to checkbox.

The File Hosting Locations page loads a set of drawers. There are five such drawers by default.

Tip To open or close a drawer, click its toggle ().

Step 5 To define a file hosting location for the specified file type, do the following:

a. Open the drawer.

b. Fill in the following fields for each hosting location:

Step 6 To add an additional file hosting location, click Create an additional file hosting location.

Step 7 To remove an existing file hosting location, expand the location drawer and click Delete.

Step 8 Click Save at the bottom of the page.

Step 9 Stop. You have completed this procedure.

Prepare a Web Server for Externally-Hosted Transcript Files

You must configure and use a web server for your text transcripts whenever they are stored externally from the Cisco Show and Share server. Your transcript files will be hosted externally when the default file location (*.*) points to an external server or if you define an external server for *.txt files.

In the root directory on your web server, you must save an XML file with the filename CROSSDOMAIN.XML.

Example File Syntax

<?xml version="1.0"?> 

<!DOCTYPE cross-domain-policy SYSTEM 
"http://www.adobe.com/xml/dtds/cross-domain-policy.dtd"> 

<cross-domain-policy> 

<site-control permitted-cross-domain-policies="master-only"/> 

<allow-access-from domain="*"/> 

<allow-http-request-headers-from domain="*" headers="SOAPAction"/> 

</cross-domain-policy> 

If you do not use a web server with the crossdomain.xml file, Cisco Show and Share will not be able to retrieve the transcripts.

Note To understand the CROSSDOMAIN.XML file and its purpose, see:
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/flashplayer/articles/fplayer9_security.html
http://www.adobe.com/devnet/articles/crossdomain_policy_file_spec.html
http://developer.yahoo.com/javascript/howto-proxy.html

Troubleshooting

Publishing for a specific file type fails

When publishing works for one file type and fails for another, it typically indicates a mis-configuration of the file hosting location. Check the file hosting location settings for the file type that is failing. Also check the network connectivity between Cisco Show and Share and the file hosting location.

All video uploads fail

If you are using FQDNs for the file hosting locations, verify that you do not have multiple FQDNs associated with the same IP address on the DNS server.

Auto-play feature does not work for Flash videos

So that viewers do not need to click play to watch a Flash video, modify the FLV hosting location by replacing rtmp in the Directory URL Path with http.

For example, change rtmp://xyz.example.com/vod/flv:flash to http://xyz.example.com/vod/flash.