Content Delivery Networks

Dom Robinson is Co-Founder and Director of Innovations at id3as, London, UK. With more than two decades in the field, Robinson is one of the pioneers in online video, streaming media, and content delivery networks. His company, id3as, has been at the forefront of cloud delivery of live video at-scale, and is responsible for the software that powers a wide range of high profile online publishers, including NASDAQ, Perform, Intelsat, Arqiva and numerous others. He writes for StreamingMedia.com, is a Visiting Lecturer at Sussex University, Chairs a number of CDN and related Conferences, and frequently is quoted by industry magazines as a CDN and technical networks expert.

• Frontispiece xiiiTopics Include xiiiAbout the Book xivSynposis xivUnique Perspective xvMarket Need xviAudience xvii1 Welcome 11.1 A Few Words of Introduction 11.2 The “Why” of this Book 21.3 Relevant Milestones of the Personal Voyage 32 Context and Orientation 92.1 History of Streaming 102.1.1 Foundations – What does “Streaming” Really Mean? 122.1.2 Streaming 132.1.3 Related Network Models 162.1.4 Physical Network Considerations 162.1.5 Internet Layer Considerations 172.1.6 Transport Layer Considerations 172.1.7 Applications – Transport Protocols 182.1.8 Protocol Evolution 192.1.9 Format Evolution 252.2 Industry Evolution 252.2.1 “Stack Creep” 262.2.2 Real World – Blue Chips and Video Delivery Networks 262.3 Consumer Adoption 292.3.1 The Audience 292.3.2 Traditional Ratings Companies and Audience Measurement 322.3.3 Streaming Media and Measurement 342.3.4 Predictions of Others 372.3.5 The Pending Collapse of the Value of Broadcasting to Advertisers 412.3.6 “Device Effect” and Formats 412.3.7 Video Formats (in Particular, Multicast and UDP) and Network Architecture 432.3.8 Discovery, Curation, and Social Media 452.4 Encode > Serve > Play 542.4.1 The Basic Building Blocks 542.4.2 The Acacia Patent 552.4.3 Akamai vs. Limelight 572.4.4 Standards, Standards, Standards, … 582.4.5 D‐Book Connected TV Standards from the Digital Television Group 602.4.6 The CoDec Concerns 612.5 What is a CDN: A Simple Model 632.5.1 Setting the Scene for CDNs 632.5.2 CDNs as Money Savers 662.5.3 Request Routing 672.5.4 CDN Brokerage 692.5.5 SaaS Models within the CDN Ecosystems 702.6 Cloud Inside – New Generation 752.7 The Three Generations of CDN 762.8 Software Definition 822.8.1 Multicore CPU and Functional Programming 862.8.2 Functional Programming and Containers 862.9 “Service Velocity” and the Operator 873 Workflows 893.1 Live Event Focus 923.1.1 Approaches to Webcasting 933.1.2 Think Before You Start – Your Client Probably Hasn’t! 943.1.3 Budgets 953.1.4 Objectives – Quality vs. Reliability 973.1.5 Production Principles 983.2 Backhaul/Contribution and Acquisition 1023.2.1 Broadcast 1043.2.2 Wire 1043.2.3 Wireless 1073.2.4 Satellite 1083.2.5 3g/4G CellMux 1093.2.6 Reliable UDP and HTTP/UDP Solutions 1113.2.7 Throughput vs. Goodput 1123.3 Cloud Saas 1133.3.1 In Workflow “Treatment” (Transcode/Transmux, etc.) 1143.3.2 DVR Workflows 1173.3.3 Catch‐up Workflows 1193.3.4 VOD Workflows 1214 Publishing 1254.1 Publishers, OVPs, CDNs, and MCNs 1264.2 Small Objects, Large Objects, or Continuous Streams 1294.2.1 Compression 1324.2.2 The “Quality Question” … 1344.2.3 Latency 1364.2.4 Application, Site, Web, and Games Acceleration 1374.3 Desktop and Device Delivery Applications 1384.3.1 Standalone Media Players and Applications 1384.3.2 Video Tags in HTML 5 1414.3.3 WebRTC – Beyond HTML 5 1424.4 Request Routing (The Dark Art of the CDN) 1424.5 Logging Analytics and the Devil in the Detail 1435 Service Velocity 1456 Charging for IP‐Delivered Content 1516.1 Lessons from the Music Industry 1516.2 Success Cases 1536.2.1 YouTube 1546.2.2 Netflix 1556.2.3 On the Horizon 1566.3 Failure Cases 1586.3.1 Scour.net 1586.3.2 mp3.com 1596.3.3 Napster 1606.3.4 Broadcast.com 1606.3.5 The “Yacht Projects” 1626.4 General Commentary on Commercial Models 1636.4.1 Cable TV 1646.4.2 Iptv 1656.4.3 OTT Pureplay + Operator CDN 1666.4.4 Fog Distribution 1676.4.5 Variation from Live Linear to VOD, and Everything in Between 1686.4.6 Drm 1696.4.7 Watermarking 1717 Competition and the Regulatory Environment 1757.1 ISOC, ITU, and WSIS 1767.2 Policy – Net Neutrality 1797.3 Value Chain Alignment with QoS and SLA Propositions 1817.4 Layer‐2 Workaround? 1818 Cultural Change 1838.1 Traditional Broadcasters 1838.2 The Millenial Subscriber 1858.3 ISP and Content Providers 1868.4 Telco and Telecoms 1888.5 Content Providers 1889 Preparing for Change in Your Design 1919.1 Preface and Philosophy 1919.2 Models, Diagrams, and Schematics 1939.3 How to do a Good Diagram? 1939.4 Scenario Planning 1949.5 Risk, Responsibility, and Reassurance 1969.6 Optimization and Upsell 1969.7 Value Creation/Agility 1979.8 Expectation Management 19710 Multicast – the Sleeping Giant 19910.1 Multicast Recap 19910.1.1 Basics 19910.1.2 Routing Protocols 20010.1.3 Flood, Prune, Storms, and a Bad Taste 20110.1.4 Commercial Outcome 20110.2 What Happens Now? 20210.3 To Singularity and Beyond 20411 Deep‐Dives (Case Studies) 20711.1 Hitting the TV Screen – IPTV/Hybrid TV and OTT 20711.1.1 The Taxonomy of OTT Video 21011.1.2 Arqiva Connect and Freeview Plus 21411.2 Creating Nasdaq’s Cloud‐Based Virtual Workflow 21711.2.1 The Genesis of a Virtual Workflow 21811.2.2 The Technology Behind the Workflow 21911.2.3 Why Amazon EC2? 22011.2.4 What Sort of Scaling Issues did You Face? 22211.2.5 How about SLA? 22211.2.6 What about Signal Acquisition? 22211.2.7 What about OS Choices and Stacks? 22311.2.8 How Is the System Controlled? 22311.2.9 How Does it Report? 22412 Wrap Up 225Index 229