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Configure CDN Load Balancer for Android

Introduction

For CDN Load Balancer to work, you must configure it with a list of your CDNs so it knows which CDNs to switch between.  This can be done using the CDN Load Balancer Portal or the Citrix ITM dashboard. First, we will guide you on setting up your CDN list and compassProperty using the CDN Load Balancer Portal. Click here to learn how to configure CDN Load Balancer to work with Citrix Openmix.

First you'll have to create all the CDNs you'll be using. Then "CDN lists" have to be defined, which are groups of CDNs serving the same content and a "business score" assigned to them as per your business logic. which will then be referenced to in a property for the CDN Load balancer instance to know for the given content (Live stream or VoD) which CDNs are available to fetch the content from. 

 

One CDN can belong to multiple CDN lists. Changes made to a CDN configuration take up to 10 mintues to be effective. Any updates made to an existing CDN list will be applied to all sessions (new and running) in up to 10 minutes.

Step 1: Create your CDNs

Navigate to "CDN Configuration" on the CDN Load Balancer Portal and input the CDN Name and host like so:  

Creating CDNs

Parameter name

Mandatory

Description

CDN Name

Yes

The name of the CDN as it will be displayed in the graphs section of your dashboard.

CDN Host

Yes

The host of your CDN. This must include the scheme (https:// or http://). This is the part of the URL that will be swapped when switching between CDNs during a session. It should not contain any part of the path.

Step 2: Group CDN in Lists

 

CDN list are a way to group CDNs with specific business scores for each CDN.

 

Business scores allow you to order CDN by order of business priorities. In simple terms, if all other factors are equal, the CDN with a higher business score will be used to fetch the content, over other CDNs with lower score.

 

A CDN can be part of multiple CDN lists with different business scores.

Grouping CDNs in lists

Parameter name

Mandatory

Description

CDN List Name

Yes

The name of the CDN List. This will be referenced when creating properties and attaching a CDN list to a property.

CDN Business Score

Yes

The business score associated with a certain CDN in that CDN list. This is an integer between 1 and 100, and it impacts the overall CDN score to reflect your business priorities.

Step 3: Create a new property and reference your CDN Lists

 

To configure your CDNs, you need to create a new property or edit the default property.

Creating or editing property

 

Note: If the activation ratio is locked, please reach out to cdnsupport@lumen.com to get started.

 

Parameter name

Mandatory

Description

Property Name

Yes

The name (used as a unique identifier) of your CDN Load Balancer property. Two properties can't have the same name.

CDN List

Yes

The name of the CDN list that you want this property to use.

CDN Score Provider

Yes

The CDN data provider can be left empty, in which case CDN Load Balancer will rely on our own backend to fetch initial CDN scores.
You can also choose Citrix as your provider and have CDN Load Balancer use Citrix ITM to gather initial scores for CDNs. If you are using Citrix, you only need to configure your CDNs in the CDN Load Balancer dashboard if you want a failsafe in case Citrix ITM API is down.
More info here.

Activation Ratio

Yes

Activation Ratio enables CDN Load Balancer on a certain percentage of your traffic. It can be used for testing and progressive production ramp-up. If the activation is 20%, 20% of viewers who have CDN Load Balancer in their page will turn it on.

Step 1: Configure Citrix Openmix

Add your CDNs and define your business rules in the Citrix dashboard. Check out the Citrix Openmix documentation here.  

Step 2: Create your CDN Load Balancer Property.

Create your CDN Load balancer property or edit the 'default' CDN Load Balancer property and choose 'Citrix' as the 'CDN Score Provider'.  

 

  • Copy your customerID and appID from your ITM dashboard and fill them in.

  • You don't ned to select a CDN list if you are using Citrix ITM. You can set one up as a fallback if you wish. Refer step 3 above to do so.
Using Citrix as the CDN List and business score provider

Step 4: Pass the property to your integration build

The property is now assoicated to a CDN list with CDN scores. You must now pass this property to your player when building a new instance of the SDK. Please refer to the integration documentation for more details.

orchestratorProperty   - string (optional)

The default property can't be deleted in the dashboard and will be applied in the following cases:

 

  • you don't specify any property in the LumenDeliveryClient builder options

  • the property set in the LumenDeliveryClient builder options doesn't match any property in the dashboard

  • the property set in the LumenDeliveryClient builder options is “default”
     

To set your property, you need to pass the string as  a build parameter to your CDN Load Balancer SDK instance.

Example

                builder.options {
  orchestratorProperty(<String>)
}
            
                builder.options(o -> {
    o.orchestratorProperty(<String>)
    return null;
});

Congratulations, CDN Load Balancer is now configured to use the CDN list and scores of your choice!  

Learn more about the CDN Load Balancer dashboard and its various features
Learn more about Monitoring tools for CDN Load Balancer