HTTP Video Streaming

Managing Streaming Video Traffic

Digital video content today has become the dominant traffic on Internet Service Provider networks worldwide; streaming HTTP along with P2P downloads consume 50% to 80% of ISP bandwidth. Growth estimates for video traffic range from 25% to 50% per year. The phenomenal growth in consumption of video content is the most significant factor affecting Internet infrastructure and represents the greatest challenge to the entire distribution chain: content owners, aggregators, ISPs and subscribers.

PeerApp provides solutions deployed in service provider networks to utilize bandwidth and network resources efficiently, accelerate content delivery and provide control over network operations. Perhaps most importantly, these solutions yield a net increase in customer satisfaction – the Quality of Experience (QoE).

PeerApp’s HTTP video streaming capability caches, accelerates and controls traffic from increasingly popular video sharing web sites YouTube, Google Video, MySpace, Facebook and others. This function is implemented in PeerApp’s UltraBand family and supports caching for FLV, SWF, MPG, MGEG and WMV file types. The solution does not require proxy servers or any changes in client configuration.

Operation Overview

Subscriber requests for specific HTTP streaming files are intercepted in real time by a Layer 7 switch and redirected to a PeerApp UltraBand 2000 or 1000 residing in the Service Provider network. The HTTP module maintains an advanced parsing mechanism that analyzes the HTTP traffic. Traffic is parsed and classified on the basis of file type, e.g. flv, wmv, mov, etc. Streamed videos are assessed based on download frequency to determine their cacheability – a measure of the relative efficiencies gained by caching individual HTTP streaming files. Frequently requested – popular – media files establish a caching priority over infrequently or rarely requested streaming files. Because a relatively small percentage of videos represent the bulk of HTTP traffic during the course of any given week, these video files lend themselves to effective caching.

For each streaming request, the UltraBand will determine whether the requested file has been previously cached. The UltraBand will also determine the integrity of the content to ensure that cached content is valid, up-to-date and what the subscriber requested. If the file exists in the cache, the UltraBand will stream or download the file to the requesting subscriber(s).

By serving the data from within the service provider network, traffic over transit and peering links is reduced and delivery is accelerated.

This entire process operates transparently to the video application or service. This means that the originating video sites will be credited for each access request (e.g. a viewing of the specific video) to ensure compliance with hosting site management and accounting systems.

Benefits

Control Bandwidth Consumption

PeerApp’s HTTP video streaming feature reduces backhaul bandwidth consumed by repetitive downloading of frequently requested videos by serving the video file from within the Service Provider network.

Improve Subscribers QoE

PeerApp’s UltraBand deployed by the Service Provider reduces network delay by sourcing the data as close to the subscriber as is possible. The result is a significant reduction in delivery times, a reduction in buffer waiting periods, and a near instantaneous rendering of the video. Improved network response times enable a better video viewing experience and greater customer satisfaction.

Drive Subscriber Growth and Revenue

By localizing the traffic to delivery popular video files, PeerApp’s UltraBand™ supports subscriber growth without massive investments in additional network infrastructure. By improving the network efficiency for video delivery, more content can be delivered without oversubscription of costly transit and peering links. In addition, the accelerated delivery of video is an excellent vehicle to showcase and promote premium price points for top-tier broadband packages of 10Mbps and more.

Management and Control

PeerApp’s HTTP caching feature provides for video content validation and expiration functions that determine which streams are cacheable. The monitoring capability ensures that cached content was not changed at the source, ensuring freshness and expiration of stale or outdated content.

A Simple Upgrade

The PeerApp HTTP Streaming capability is implemented as a software module option for existing UltraBand platforms. The PeerApp carrier-grade system architecture ensures the highest availability to meet Service Provider requirements for reliability, maintainability and uptime.