Setting up content distribution resources

Creating policies

About policies

Policies are content distribution rules that enable you to control how jobs handle content. Every job references a policy.

Function of policies

Policies control the following aspects of content distribution:

Creation of lists of contacts to Email about job status
Data security, integrity, and compression
Criteria for distribution success
Instructions to NetCache specifying when to make content available for serving

Synchronizing time for time-sensitive features

To use time-sensitive features such as Min Age in policies, you need to synchronize the time zone and time. This means the time zone and time must be exactly the same on the specified devices, even if they are separated geographically:

If you are running CD at the core application server, you need to synchronize the core application and the NetCache destination.
If you are running CD remotely through the applet, you need to synchronize the machine running the applet, the core application server, and the NetCache destination, and restart the machine running the applet.

Who should create policies

Any administrator can create policies, and regular users can also create them if their user group rights permit it.

Creating policies requires technical understanding of how networks handle content, as well as knowledge of your organization's goals and guidelines for distributing content. For this reason, only qualified personnel should create policies.

The default policy

ContentDirector ships with a default policy configured and ready to use. You can modify the default policy as desired. To modify the default policy, complete the following steps:

Step	Action
1	On the left side of the main screen, click the Policies button.
2	Double-click the listing for Default Policy.
3	Make any desired changes.
4	Click OK.

Before you start

The Policy tab of the Preferences screen contains settings that populate fields in each new policy. Before creating policies, be sure to set these preferences appropriately for your needs. For more information, see Setting content distribution preferences.

Tabs in the Policy screen

Each policy consists of Options, Contacts, Network, Quorum, Cache, and Compression tabs. The following instructions describe how to create a new policy by filling in each tab.

Opening the New Policy screen and filling in the Options tab

To fill in the Options tab, complete the following steps to fill in the tabs.

Step	Action
1	On the menu bar at the top of the ContentDirector main screen, click Policies > New.
2	In the Name field, enter a descriptive name for this policy.
3	The Import policy field enables you to select an existing policy to use a template for the new policy. If you do not want to use a template, skip this step. To import a policy, click the drop-down menu and select a policy.

Step

Action

On the menu bar at the top of the ContentDirector main screen, click Policies > New.

In the Name field, enter a descriptive name for this policy.

The Import policy field enables you to select an existing policy to use a template for the new policy. If you do not want to use a template, skip this step.

To import a policy, click the drop-down menu and select a policy.

Filling in the Contacts tab

The Contacts tab enables you to set up personnel who can be notified automatically of the final status of jobs.

Note
You can set up a contact to email Network Appliance autosupport when jobs fail. Network Appliance will examine the information sent by ContentDirector and contact you about any significant failure. See the procedure below for details.

To fill in the Contacts tab, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Click the Contacts tab. If fields in this tab are already populated by your preferences, skip those steps.
2	In the SMTP Host field, enter the name of the default mail server to use when emailing contacts about the final status of jobs.
3	In the Sent by field, enter the default name to write in the From field when sending job status Emails.
4	To add new contacts, click New.
5	In the New Contact screen enter the name, Email address, and optional comments. To use Network Appliance autosupport for your ContentDirector installation, enter the following email address: autosupport@netapp.com
6	Under Options, select the check box specifying when you want ContentDirector to Email this contact automatically. For the autosupport contact, select Contact If Job Fails.
7	Click OK to save the new contact.
8	To add more contacts, repeat Steps 4 through 7. Note Contacts added by system administrators are visible to all users. Contacts added by any other users are visible only to the user who added them.
9	You can include or exclude contacts from the list of contacts to be Emailed by this policy: To include a contact in this policy, click the contact name under Available Contacts, then click Add. To exclude a contact from this policy, click the contact name under Current Contacts, then click Remove.

Filling in the Network tab

The Network tab contains settings that manage the integrity of the content as it is sent over the network.

To fill in the Network tab, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Next to the Security field, leave the setting on None, or click the dropdown arrow and select a security setting: Encryption, Verification, or Both: None: Validates content, but does not encrypt or verify it. Encryption: Encrypts content. Verification:Verifies that content did not change during distribution. Both: Uses both encryption and verification. Note Enabling any additional security can lengthen the time it takes to complete a job.
2	If you are distributing content via satellite, select the checkbox next to Enable Forward Error correction. Under Data Packet Loss Rate use the default setting. If your network does not include a satellite link, skip this step. Note If your satellite link uses a terrestrial backchannel for control, setting the Data Packet Loss Rate is optional.

Step

Action

Next to the Security field, leave the setting on None, or click the dropdown arrow and select a security setting: Encryption, Verification, or Both:

None: Validates content, but does not encrypt or verify it.
Encryption: Encrypts content.
Verification:Verifies that content did not change during distribution.
Both: Uses both encryption and verification.
Note
Enabling any additional security can lengthen the time it takes to complete a job.

If you are distributing content via satellite, select the checkbox next to Enable Forward Error correction. Under Data Packet Loss Rate use the default setting.

If your network does not include a satellite link, skip this step.

Note
If your satellite link uses a terrestrial backchannel for control, setting the Data Packet Loss Rate is optional.

Filling in the Quorum tab

Quorums set criteria for job success based on the number of destinations that receive content.

To fill in the Quorum tab, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Click the Quorum tab. At the Commit Quorum field, click the drop-down menu and set the percentage of targeted destinations you need to receive a job in order for ContentDirector to flag the job as successful. The default percentage is 100. For example, if you have 100 destinations targeted for a job, and need eighty of them to receive the content for the job to be a success, choose 80 percent. You can use the repush feature later to send the job to the remaining twenty destinations. A commit quorum of 0% requires at least 1 destination to process the assignment successfully for the job to succeed. For example, for a job with 0% commit quorum that pushes to 100 destinations, if 99 destinations fail to process the assignment, the job still succeeds. The job fails only if all 100 destinations fail to commit. Note If you have multiple NetCache appliance destinations that receive the same content, a commit quorum of less than 100 percent can help increase the efficiency of content distribution.
2	At the Availability Quorum field, click the dropdown arrow and set the percentage of targeted destinations you need to be ready before ContentDirector starts sending a job. The default percentage is 100. The availability quorum saves time and bandwidth by preventing ContentDirector from starting a job if the minimum percentage of destinations is not available.
3	Under Retry Information: Select the check box next to Enable Retry Of Failed Jobs to enable the retry feature. Retry attempts to re-send a job to the whole destination group if the first attempt fails to meet the commit quorum. In the Number field, enter the number of times you want ContentDirector to retry. The default number of retries is zero. In the Interval Time field, enter the amount of time for ContentDirector to wait between job retries. Use the format hours: minutes: seconds. For example, for ten minutes, enter 00:10:00. The default time is five minutes. The interval time is used only if you entered a value in the Number field.
4	Under Repush Information: Select the check box next to Enable Repush To Failed Servers to enable the repush feature. A quorum of less than 100% permits a job to succeed even though not all destinations received it. Repush attempts to re-send the job to destinations that did not receive it the first time. In the Number field, enter the number of times you want ContentDirector to attempt to repush. The default number of retries is zero. In the Interval time field, enter the amount of time for ContentDirector to wait between repush attempts. Use the format hours: minutes: seconds. For example, for ten minutes, enter 00:10:00. The default time is five minutes. The interval time is used only if you entered a value in the Number field.

Filling in the Cache tab

The Cache tab settings determine how NetCache destinations handle content. These settings do not apply to Solaris or Windows client destinations.

To fill in the Cache tab, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Click the Cache tab.
2	Select the Expires check box to enable an expiration age (time to live), and enter the age in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. When content reaches the Expires age, the NetCache must retrieve fresh content from the distribution server.
3	Select the Max Age check box to set a maximum age for content, and enter the maximum age in days, hours, minutes, and seconds. The default setting is 30 days. Max Age applies only to http:// content, not to mms:// or rtsp://. Note The Max Age setting has the same function as Expires. It is valid in HTML 1.1 only, where it takes precedence over Expires. If the destination or client web browser does not support HTML 1.1, it uses the Expires setting. The safest approach is to set both Expires and Max Age to the same value.
4	Select the Min Age check box to enable an earliest date and time content may be served, and then select the date and time as month/day/year and hours:seconds AM or PM.
5	Select the Must Revalidate Header check box to require destinations to revalidate headers when refreshing stale content.
6	At Lock Files In Cache, enter the duration of locking in days, plus any additional time in hours:minutes:seconds. The maximum value is: 999 days, 23 hours, 59 minutes, and 59 seconds. The default setting is 30 days.
7	Under Completion Criterion, select a value that determines what portion of the content sent to the cache must be published to the cache for the job to be successful: All: all content must be published - any publishing failure results in a failed status Best Effort: no minimum is set, and status is always successful % Bytes: specifies the percentage of bytes in the job that must be published % Files: specifies the percentage of files in the job that must be published The completion quorum interacts with the commit quorum. Each NetCache destination sends a status report of success or fail to the core application. The core application sums all the status reports and compares them to the commit quorum to determine whether the job succeeded.

Filling in the Compression tab

The Compression tab contains settings that enable compression of content as it is sent over the network. Compressing content lengthens the time to prepare the job, but shortens the time required to distribute it.

The default setting for compression is none. If you are not using compression, you can skip this step.

To fill in the Compression tab, complete the following steps.

Step	Action
1	Click the Compression tab.
2	Next to Compression type, click the drop down menu and select None, Low, Medium, or High compression.
3	File Types Not Compressed lists types of files to exclude from compression in jobs where compression is activated. If this section is not already populated by your preferences, add files to exclude from compression by clicking the file extension on the Available panel, then clicking Add. To remove files from the File types not compressed list, click the file extension on the Current panel, then click Remove. This means that the file type is compressed when ContentDirector distributes it. To add new file types to the Available panel, click New, enter the name and a description for the file type, and then click OK.
4	Click OK to save the policy. Result: The new policy appears in the Policies view of the main screen.