Cisco Cisco TV Streamer Application

Release 2.5.6 introduces the Remote Setup and Control Server Support feature, which allows the Setup 
and Control servers of the Streamers to be placed in a different location than the Play servers of the 
Streamers. All control traffic (setup and control) goes to one server acting as the Setup and Control 
servers, and all video data traffic is served from the Streamers designated as the Play servers.

As part of this feature, there is never just one stream transmitted on a single Ethernet interface. There is 
always at least two active streams transmitted on an interface.

The Remote Setup and Control Server Support feature is supported on a Virtual Video Infrastructure 
(VVI) with split-domain management in an ISA environment and Content Storage configured as either 
Shared or Distributed. The VOD Error Repair feature is not supported with the Remote Setup and 
Control Server Support feature.

The setup and control traffic between the set-top boxes (STBs) and CDS is sent to a location that is 
separate from the location where the video data streams originate. The Session Traversal Utilities for 
NAT (STUN) traffic is structured so that it is sent to the Setup server instead of the Play server. The 
packets used to discover the data path through the end-user's NAT device comply with RFC-5389.

The Remote Setup and Control Server Support feature requires at least two stream requests before 
sending the first data stream, and makes sure there are at least two data streams on an active Streamer 
interface at all times. The Control server makes sure there are at least two streams on an active Streamer, 
and the active Streamer makes sure there are at least two streams on an active stream interface.

The very first session setup request waits for the second session setup request. If the second setup request 
does not show up with in the configured time interval then the first request times out and fails the session 
setup, otherwise both of the setup requests are processed in concurrently. If the first play request on a 
Control server reaches the session timeout period before a second play request is received, the first 
session fails without allocating the play server.

If there are only two sessions created on the CDS and one session is destroyed or completes, the 
remaining session is destroyed by setup server.

The Remote Setup and Control Server Support feature introduces the Global Source Address, which is 
the IP address (and optional associated port number) that is used by all Play servers for transmitting 
stream data. The Global Source Address is defined on all Streamers acting as the Play server and the 
remote server acting as the Setup and Control server.

The Global Source Address is defined in the setupfile on Streamers acting as the Play server and the 
remote server acting as the Setup and Control server. This address is hosted on the primary Setup server 
and is managed in a fault-tolerant manner; that is, it moves from interface to interface as needed if an 
interface fails, and it transitions to a new primary Setup server if the original primary Setup server 
becomes unreachable.

Each stream interface on the Streamers continues to have a unique IP address so that diagnostic packets 
(and cache- fill traffic if configured as a stream/cache interface) can be sent and received on those 
interfaces.  However, all stream data packets are sent using the Global Source Address as the source.