Rackspace Cloud Files

With Encoding.com you can deliver to multiple CDNs and YouTube in one step. Simply specify multiple destination tags in your format requests and we will distribute your videos to the CDNs of your choice.

You can easily send your completed source videos to Amazon S3, Rackspace, Edgecast, Highwinds, Akamai, CloudFront, Limelight, Level 3, CDNetworks, & Brightcove. 

Along with mutliple delivery options, you can also inject varying metadata into each delivery location. 

Sample XML:

<?xml version="1.0"?>
<query>
<!-- Main fields -->
    <userid>[UserID]</userid>
    <userkey>[UserKey]</userkey>
<action>AddMedia</action>
<source>[SourceFile]</source>
<notify>[NotifyURL]</notify>
<format> <!-- YouTube delivery + Description-->
<destination>http://[YoutubeLogin]:[YoutubePassword]@youtube.com/?title=[VideoTitle]&category=[VideoCategory]&keywords=[VideoKeywords]&description=[VideoDescription]&acl=[ACL]</destination>
<output>mp4</output>
</format>
<format> <!-- Amazon S3 Delivery + Description + Metadata insertion-->
<destination>http://[bucket].s3.amazonaws.com/[filename]</destination>
<output>mp4</output>
     <metadata>  
            <title>[Title]</title> 
            <copyright>[Copyright]</copyright>  
            <author>[Author]</author>  
            <description>[Description]</description>  
            <album>[Album]</album>  
    </metadata>
</format>
<format> <!-- Rackspace delivery + Description + Metadata insertion-->
<destination>http://[RS_USER:RS_KEY@]storage.cloudfiles.com/[path]/[filename]</destination>
<output>mp4</output>
<metadata>  
            <title>[Title]</title> 
            <copyright>[Copyright]</copyright>  
            <author>[Author]</author>  
            <description>[Description]</description>  
            <album>[Album]</album>  
        </metadata>
</format>
</query>

Want to only process certain files in your watchfolders?  Use our masking controls in the watchfolder UI. Good stuff!

+ Select 'Watchfolder' --> 'Add New Watchfolder' in the UI

+ Under the 'File Name Control' field, add in the type of content you WANT to process. For example, if you want to process only .mp4 content, then the masking field would contain, '*.mp4.' Add in multiple files types if you like!

+ Please note this functionality is only for file types, and not file names.

If you are used to setting permissions in Amazon buckets, you're probably familiar with S3's style of ACL usage appended to the source URLs. In Rackspace, no URL defined permissions exist. The way to set public versus private permissions is via containers.

Public: Select 'Publish to CDN' in the container properties. This creates a link that allows that particular location to be viewed by anyone. This is the only way to enable public viewing if your videos are stored on Rackspace's CloudFiles. Through this function, Rackspace simultaneously publishes your content to Akamai's CDN. No additional steps are required to enable this feature.  

Private: With a valid username and API Access Key in the source or destination URL, you're allowing Encoding.com to use your credentials to access your content.

Rackspace’s cloud files represents a failure-proof storage solution that scales to meet your needs, effortlessly. We offer cloud video encoding solutions that are unmatched in the industry. Integrate Rackspace’s Cloud Files and Encoding.com’s powerful processing platform to extend your workflow to infinite possibilities.

Need to monitor a container on a daily basis for new content, or just upload one video at a time? Struggling with cloud video transcoding? No problem. Check out this easy how-to guide on how to use these powerful cloud computing and storage solutions to your advantage.

There are a variety of innovative ways that Encoding.com uses the Rackspace Cloud to power its service and make it easy for other Rackspace customers to integrate with Encoding.com. Advanced CloudFiles Integration Using the web interface, watch folder or API, you can specify your Cloud Files account as either source or destination locations. Please see our collection of help articles on using Cloud Files with Encoding.com.

Automatic Cloud Files CDN Enabled Distribution With Limelight Networks’ service, Cloud Files brings a powerful and easy way to publish content over a world-class, industry leading CDN. A Cloud Files user automatically gets access to this network. Users simply have to mark containers for publishing to CDN and they are readily accessible through the Limelight Networks CDN. The propagation of content to the edge locations is done automatically behind the scene. Users do not have to plan or write any new code to utilize this facility. This workflow is a perfect compliment to Encoding.com as encoded videos can be sent directly to CDN enabled Cloud Files containers automatically producing a http streaming URL to the video. In The Rackspace web control panel, it is a matter of creating a container (the storage compartment for data), uploading objects (the files to serve over CDN), and marking the container as “public”. The container is then assigned a unique URL which can be combined with cbject names to embed in web pages, email messages, blog posts, etc.

For example, you could encode a video with Encoding.com and have it sent directly to a Container called “video”. When this Container is published, it will be assigned a unique URL like “http://c0000532.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com″ You could then publish a CDN enabled public link like “http://c0000532.cdn.cloudfiles.rackspacecloud.com/my_movie.flv.”. When that link is accessed, the video is automatically streamed using HTTP progressive from the CDN; it’s that simple!

Speed The media upload and download time from your Rackspace Cloud Files container, Cloud Servers, Rackspace Managed Hosting dedicated servers, or the Limelight CDN network to our processing system on CloudServers is lightening fast because it does not travel over the public internet.

The Rackspace Cloud Files platform does not offer the FTP method to send files to their service. Encoding.com added support for our customers to send encoded videos directly to their platform.To specify the source file or output file(s) to be put in a Rackspace Cloud Files folder, you can specify your source or destination URL in a few different ways different ways:

1) Virtual URL: http://RS_USER:RS_KEY@storage.cloudfiles.com/actual_container_name/file.ext - Please note the usage of the word 'Virtual' as this formatting is not going to be visible as your browse your Rackspace account. You must create this formatting by following the steps below:

a) Browse to 'Your Account' on your Rackspace control panel and select 'API access'

b) Pull your username and API key and use them to format your URL as listed below.

For example's sake, lets use Encoding123 for the user name and XYZ as the shortened version of what the API key would be.

http://Encoding123:XYZ@storage.cloudfiles.com/actual_container_name/file.ext

Please make sure to fully swap out the information if your URL looks like this: http://c44729.r29.cf2.rackcdn.com/Test.mov Change it to: http://Encoding123:XYZ@storage.cloudfiles.com/Source/Test.mov

---

2) If you select 'Publish to CDN' on the container that you have the source files stored in, Rackspace will generate a unique URL, like http://c12345.r01.cf2.rackcdn.com/test.mov. This URL is now available to the public via this link, and is also simultaneously published to Akamai's CDN. 

Please send your API requests to manage.encoding.com at 74.205.109.125
Notification posts are coming from 74.205.109.120 to 74.205.109.129

Port Assignments

FTP on port 21
SFTP on port 22
HTTP on port 80
HTTPS on port 443

Amazon EC2 (updated October 2012)

Please refer to AWS EC2 forums for more details.

US East (Northern Virginia)

72.44.32.0/19 (72.44.32.0 - 72.44.63.255)
67.202.0.0/18 (67.202.0.0 - 67.202.63.255)
75.101.128.0/17 (75.101.128.0 - 75.101.255.255)
174.129.0.0/16 (174.129.0.0 - 174.129.255.255)
204.236.192.0/18 (204.236.192.0 - 204.236.255.255)
184.73.0.0/16 (184.73.0.0 – 184.73.255.255)
184.72.128.0/17 (184.72.128.0 - 184.72.255.255)
184.72.64.0/18 (184.72.64.0 - 184.72.127.255)
50.16.0.0/15 (50.16.0.0 - 50.17.255.255)
50.19.0.0/16 (50.19.0.0 - 50.19.255.255)
107.20.0.0/14 (107.20.0.0 - 107.23.255.255)
23.20.0.0/14 (23.20.0.0 – 23.23.255.255)
54.242.0.0/15 (54.242.0.0 – 54.243.255.255)
54.234.0.0/15 (54.234.0.0 – 54.235.255.255) ** NEW
54.236.0.0/15 (54.236.0.0 – 54.237.255.255) ** NEW

US West (Northern California)

204.236.128.0/18 (204.236.128.0 - 204.236.191.255)
184.72.0.0/18 (184.72.0.0 – 184.72.63.255)
50.18.0.0/16 (50.18.0.0 - 50.18.255.255)
184.169.128.0/17 (184.169.128.0 - 184.169.255.255)
54.241.0.0/16 (54.241.0.0 – 54.241.255.255)

US West (Oregon)

50.112.0.0/16 (50.112.0.0 - 50.112.255.255)
54.245.0.0/16 (54.245.0.0 – 54.245.255.255)

EU (Ireland)

79.125.0.0/17 (79.125.0.0 - 79.125.127.255)
46.51.128.0/18 (46.51.128.0 - 46.51.191.255)
46.51.192.0/20 (46.51.192.0 - 46.51.207.255)
46.137.0.0/17 (46.137.0.0 - 46.137.127.255)
46.137.128.0/18 (46.137.128.0 - 46.137.191.255)
176.34.128.0/17 (176.34.128.0 - 176.34.255.255)
176.34.64.0/18 (176.34.64.0 – 176.34.127.255)
54.247.0.0/16 (54.247.0.0 – 54.247.255.255)
54.246.0.0/16 (54.246.0.0 – 54.246.255.255) ** NEW

Asia Pacific (Singapore)

175.41.128.0/18 (175.41.128.0 - 175.41.191.255)
122.248.192.0/18 (122.248.192.0 - 122.248.255.255)
46.137.192.0/18 (46.137.192.0 - 46.137.255.255)
46.51.216.0/21 (46.51.216.0 - 46.51.223.255)
54.251.0.0/16 (54.251.0.0 – 54.251.255.255)

Asia Pacific (Tokyo)

175.41.192.0/18 (175.41.192.0 - 175.41.255.255)
46.51.224.0/19 (46.51.224.0 - 46.51.255.255)
176.32.64.0/19 (176.32.64.0 - 176.32.95.255)
103.4.8.0/21 (103.4.8.0 - 103.4.15.255)
176.34.0.0/18 (176.34.0.0 - 176.34.63.255)
54.248.0.0/15 (54.248.0.0 - 54.249.255.255)

South America (Sao Paulo)

177.71.128.0/17 (177.71.128.0 - 177.71.255.255)
54.232.0.0/16 (54.232.0.0 – 54.232.255.255) ** NEW

Rackspace Cloud Servers - Not currently used for processing!

204.232.192.* - 204.232.207.*
173.203.194.* - 173.203.223.*
174.143.152.* - 174.143.173.*

Encoding.com Private Cloud:

208.87.216.0/21
(inclusive 208.87.216.0 - 208.87.223.255)

S3 Storage Access

Almost every corporate firewall will allow outgoing access to the web at ports 80 and/or 443, or via an HTTP/HTTPS proxy. Can you access https://s3.amazonaws.com from behind the firewall? If so, you can access S3 storage.

Localization

For specific access at a corporate location behind a firewall needing an IP range, please try these steps.

1. From a command prompt use dig or nslookup to lookup an IP for s3.amazonaws.com

2. Take the IP you get (I get 207.171.187.117) and run a whois query on it. If you aren't on a system that has whois installed there are several websites that provide it, including Network Solutions at http://www.networksolutions.com/whois/index.jsp

3. On there you will see the range of IP addresses Amazon owns around the IP that you found. So for me, when I whois the above IP the following result comes back:

"Amazon.com, Inc. AMAZON-01 (NET-207-171-160-0-1) 207.171.160.0 - 207.171.191.255"

NOTE: s3.amazonaws.com is a CNAME for s3-1.amazonaws.com and s3-2.amazonaws.com

The two ranges of IPs I see assigned for these are:
72.21.192.0 - 72.21.223.255
207.171.160.0 - 207.171.191.255

You might get completely different IP ranges based on where you are in the world. Just follow these steps to localize.