Importing large resource files

Importing large, non-DITA files, such as videos, can impact memory requirements and performance of the IXIA CCMS.

Memory

Whenever a you create a new revision for an object, your action creates a new copy of the file to preserve the content of each revision.

Note: Localization is a special case, and requires a distinction between legacy and current content.
  • Legacy content: Similar to standard revisions, for each legacy map submitted to localization, the submission creates all its related objects for each selected language.
  • New content: For new files submitted to localization, the translation manifest includes pointers for files in each selected language and retains those for the initial phase of localization. Once you receive notification that your translation agency has files ready for you and you begin an import, only then does IXIA CCMS actually create the related objects for each imported file.

Because of the method IXIA CCMS uses to manage revisions, embedded large files require a lot of memory for your Content Store. Even if a file is relatively small, having multiple revisions of the file can quickly use a significant amount of memory.

Performance

If users regularly embed large videos and images in topics, they may find that handling topics becomes slower.

  • IXIA CCMS Web: If a topic references a video or image file, the topic downloads it in the browser when you load the topic.
  • In IXIA CCMS Desktop, topics and their contents are copied locally, and then pushed back to IXIA TEXTML Server when released.

Recommendations

Avoid importing large, non-DITA files into IXIA CCMS. Repeated revisions and localization can duplicate the file many times over even in smaller files of less than 2MB.

Instead, the best solution is:
  • Store large, non-DITA files elsewhere and link to them from your topics.
  • Embed an external reference to a video using an object element so that the video appears in the HTML output.