Advanced Content Delivery, Streaming, and Cloud Services
Wiley Series on Parallel and Distributed Computing Series

While other books on the market provide limited coverage of advanced CDNs and streaming technologies, concentrating solely on the fundamentals, this book provides an up-to-date comprehensive coverage of the state-of-the-art advancements in CDNs, with a special focus on Cloud-based CDNs. The book includes CDN and media streaming basics, performance models, practical applications, and business analysis. It features industry case studies, CDN applications, and open research issues to aid practitioners and researchers, and a market analysis to provide a reference point for commercial entities. The book covers Adaptive Bitrate Streaming (ABR), Content Delivery Cloud (CDC), Web Acceleration, Front End Optimization (FEO), Transparent Caching, Next Generation CDNs, CDN Business Intelligence and more.

• Provides an in-depth look at Cloud-based CDNs
• Includes CDN and streaming media basics and tutorials
• Aimed to instruct systems architects, practitioners, product developers, and researchers
• Material is divided into introductory subjects, advanced content, and specialist areas

Preface xv

Acknowledgments xxi

Contributors xxiii

PART I CDN AND MEDIA STREAMING BASICS 1

1 CLOUD-BASED CONTENT DELIVERY AND STREAMING 3
Mukaddim Pathan

1.1 Introduction 3

1.2 CDN Overview 5

1.3 Workings of a CDN 10

1.4 CDN Trends 21

1.5 Research Issues 28

1.6 Conclusion 29

References 29

2 LIVE STREAMING ECOSYSTEMS 33
Dom Robinson

2.1 Introduction 33

2.2 Live Streaming Pre-Evolution 34

2.3 Live, Linear, Nonlinear 35

2.4 Media Streaming 37

2.5 Related Network Models 38

2.6 Streaming Protocol Success 43

2.7 Platform Divergence and Codec Convergence 44

2.8 Adaptive Bitrate (ABR) Streaming 45

2.9 Internet Radio and HTTP 48

2.10 Conclusion 48

References 49

3 PRACTICAL SYSTEMS FOR LIVE STREAMING 51
Dom Robinson

3.1 Introduction 51

3.2 Common Concepts in Live Streaming 52

3.3 The Practicals 56

3.4 Conclusion 69

References 70

4 EFFICIENCY OF CACHING AND CONTENT DELIVERY IN BROADBAND ACCESS NETWORKS 71
Gerhard Haslinger

4.1 Introduction 71

4.2 Options and Properties for Web Caching 73

4.3 Zipf Laws for Requests to Popular Content 75

4.4 Efficiency and Performance Modeling for Caches 76

4.5 Effect of Replacement Strategies on Cache Hit Rates 78

4.6 Replacement Methods Based on Request Statistics 81

4.7 Global CDN and P2P Overlays for Content Delivery 84

4.8 Summary and Conclusion 86

Acknowledgments 87

References 87

5 ANYCAST REQUEST ROUTING FOR CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKS 91
Hussein A. Alzoubi, Michael Rabinovich, Seungjoon Lee, Kobus Van Der Merwe, and Oliver Spatscheck

5.1 Introduction 91

5.2 CDN Request Routing: An Overview 93

5.3 A Practical Load-Aware IP Anycast CDN 96

5.4 Mapping Algorithms 98

5.5 Evaluation 102

5.6 IPv6 Anycast CDNs 107

5.7 Discussion and Open Questions 114

5.8 Conclusion 116

References 116

6 CLOUD-BASED CONTENT DELIVERY TO HOME ECOSYSTEMS 119
Tiago Cruz, Paulo Sim̃oes, and Edmundo Monteiro

6.1 Introduction 119

6.2 Bringing Cloud Services to Home: State of the Art 120

6.3 Virtualizing the Access Network Infrastructure 123

6.4 Virtualization for Cloud Service Delivery to Home 130

6.5 Future Trends 137

6.6 Summary and Conclusion 137

Acknowledgments 137

References 138

7 MOBILE VIDEO STREAMING 141
Ram Lakshmi Narayanan, Yinghua Ye, Anuj Kaul, and Mili Shah

7.1 Introduction 141

7.2 Mobile Broadband Architecture 142

7.3 Video Streaming Protocols 143

7.4 Video Optimization Services 146

7.5 Operator-Hosted CDN 149

7.6 Cloud-Based Video Streaming 151

7.7 Future Research Directions 154

Acknowledgments 156

References 156

PART II CDN PERFORMANCE MANAGEMENT AND OPTIMIZATION 159

8 CDN ANALYTICS: A PRIMER 161
Timothy Siglin

8.1 Introduction 161

8.2 Why Measure? 162

8.3 What do we Measure? 162

8.4 What about Business Intelligence? 169

8.5 Measuring Stateless Delivery 171

8.6 Billing Analytics 173

8.7 CDN Analytics Tools 174

8.8 Recent Trends in CDN Analytics 175

8.9 Conclusion 176

References 176

9 CDN MODELING 179
Tolga Bektas and Ozgur Ercetin

9.1 Introduction 179

9.2 Basics on Mathematical Modeling and Optimization 180

9.3 Video-on-Demand Applications 182

9.4 Optimization Problems in Content Delivery and VoD Services 185

9.5 Visionary Thoughts for Practitioners 198

9.6 Future Research Directions 198

9.7 Conclusions 199

Acknowledgments 200

References 200

10 ANALYZING CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKS 203
Benjamin Molina, Jaime Calvo, Carlos E. Palau, and Manuel Esteve

10.1 Introduction 203

10.2 Previous Work 204

10.3 Basic CDN Model 205

10.4 Enhancing the Model 206

10.5 Performance Evaluation 212

10.6 Conclusions 216

References 216

11 MULTISOURCE STREAM AGGREGATION IN THE CLOUD 219
Marat Zhanikeev

11.1 Introduction 219

11.2 Terminologies 221

11.3 Background and Related Work 222

11.4 The Substream Method in the Cloud 224

11.5 Stream Aggregation in the Cloud 226

11.6 Models 228

11.7 Analysis 231

11.8 Visionary Thoughts for Practitioners 236

11.9 Future Research Directions 238

11.10 Conclusion 239

References 239

12 BEYOND CDN: CONTENT PROCESSING AT THE EDGE OF THE CLOUD 243
Salekul Islam and Jean-Charles Gŕegoire

12.1 Introduction 243

12.2 Existing Content Delivery Platforms 244

12.3 Comparison of Existing Content Delivery Platforms 247

12.4 An Edge Cloud-Based Model 251

12.5 Results and Insights 255

12.6 Future Research Directions 256

12.7 Conclusion 257

References 257

13 DYNAMIC RECONFIGURATION FOR ADAPTIVE STREAMING 259
Norihiko Yoshida

13.1 Introduction 259

13.2 Background and Related Work 260

13.3 Dynamic Server Deployment 262

13.4 From Content Delivery to Streaming 263

13.5 Future Research Directions 267

13.6 Conclusion 269

Acknowledgments 269

References 269

14 MINING DISTRIBUTED DATA STREAMS ON CONTENT DELIVERY NETWORKS 273
Eugenio Cesario, Carlo Mastroianni, and Domenico Talia

14.1 Introduction 273

14.2 Background and Related Work 275

14.3 A Hybrid Multidomain Architecture 277

14.4 A Prototype for Stream Mining in a CDN 281

14.5 Visionary Thoughts for Practitioners 285

14.6 Future Research Directions 285

14.7 Conclusion 286

References 286

15 CDN CAPACITY PLANNING 289
Phil Davies and Mukaddim Pathan

15.1 Introduction 289

15.2 Capacity Planning Process 290

15.3 Undertaking the Capacity Planning Process 295

15.4 CDN Capacity Planning Case Study 300

15.5 Recent Developments and Challenges 302

15.6 Summary and Conclusion 303

References 303

PART III CASE STUDIES AND NEXT GENERATION CDNs 305

16 OVERLAY NETWORKS: AN AKAMAI PERSPECTIVE 307
Ramesh K. Sitaraman, Mangesh Kasbekar, Woody Lichtenstein, and Manish Jain

16.1 Introduction 307

16.2 Background 309

16.3 Caching Overlays 314

16.4 Routing Overlays 318

16.5 Security Overlays 323

16.6 Conclusion 325

References 326

17 NEXT-GENERATION CDNs: A CoBlitz PERSPECTIVE 329
Vivek S. Pai

17.1 Introduction 329

17.2 Carrier CDNs 331

17.3 Managed CDNs 332

17.4 Federated CDNs 333

17.5 Licensed CDNs 335

17.6 Case Study: CoBlitz 337

17.7 CoBlitz Commercialization 343

17.8 Implications of HTTP Adaptive Streaming 345

17.9 CoBlitz Commercialization Lessons 347

17.10 CDN Industry Directions 348

Acknowledgments 349

References 349

18 CONTENT DELIVERY IN CHINA: A ChinaCache PERSPECTIVE 353
Michael Talyansky, Alexei Tumarkin, Hunter Xu, and Ken Zhang

18.1 Introduction 353

18.2 Content-Aware Network Services in China 356

18.3 Directions for Future CDN Research and Trends in China 365

18.4 Conclusion 366

References 366

19 PlatonTV: A SCIENTIFIC HIGH DEFINITION CONTENT DELIVERY PLATFORM 369
Mirosław Czyrnek, Jedrzej Jajor, Jerzy Jamrozy, Ewa Kusmierek, Cezary Mazurek, Maciej Stroinski, and Jan Weglarz

19.1 Introduction 369

19.2 Background and Related Work 371

19.3 PlatonTV Architecture 372

19.4 Content Ingest 374

19.5 Content Distribution and Management 376

19.6 Content Delivery 379

19.7 Availability and Reliability 381

19.8 Visionary Thoughts for Practitioners 382

19.9 Future Research Directions 383

19.10 Conclusion 383

Acknowledgments 383

References 384

20 CacheCast: A SINGLE-SOURCE MULTIPLE-DESTINATION CACHING MECHANISM 385
Piotr Srebrny, Dag H.L. Sorbo, Thomas Plagemann, Vera Goebel, and Andreas Mauthe

20.1 Introduction 385

20.2 Related Work 387

20.3 CacheCast Overview 388

20.4 Background on Multidestination Traffic 389

20.5 CacheCast Design 391

20.6 CacheCast Efficiency 396

20.7 CacheCast Applications 399

20.8 Visionary Thoughts for Practitioners 407

20.9 Future Research Directions 409

20.10 Conclusion 409

Acknowledgments 410

References 410

21 CONTENT REPLICATION AND DELIVERY IN INFORMATION-CENTRIC NETWORKS 413
Vasilis Sourlas, Paris Flegkas, Dimitrios Katsaros, and Leandros Tassiulas

21.1 Introduction 413

21.2 Related Work 414

21.3 Framework for Information Replication in ICN 416

21.4 Performance Evaluation 423

21.5 Future Research Directions 426

21.6 Conclusion 426

Acknowledgments 427

References 427

22 ROBUST CONTENT BROADCASTING IN VEHICULAR NETWORKS 431
Giancarlo Fortino, Carlos T. Calafate, Juan C. Cano, and Pietro Manzoni

22.1 Introduction 431

22.2 Vehicular Networks 432

22.3 Forward Error Correction Techniques 433

22.4 A Robust Broadcast-Based Content Delivery System 434

22.5 CDS Simulation in NS-3 436

22.6 Performance Evaluation 437

22.7 Future Research Trends 444

22.8 Summary and Conclusion 446

Acknowledgments 447

References 447

23 ON THE IMPACT OF ONLINE SOCIAL NETWORKS IN CONTENT DELIVERY 449
Irene Kilanioti, Chryssis Georgiou, and George Pallis

23.1 Introduction 449

23.2 Online Social Networks Background 450

23.3 Characterization of Social Cascades 453

23.4 Online Social Network Measurements 456

23.5 Systems 458

23.6 Future Research Directions 459

23.7 Conclusion 461

Acknowledgments 461

References 461

Index 465

Mukaddim Pathan, PhD, is a Senior Specialist of Content Delivery Networks at Telstra Corporation Limited, Australia. He contributed in the development of MetaCDN, a Cloud-based CDN.

Ramesh K. Sitaraman, is a computer science professor at the University of Massachusetts, Amherst, USA. He is best known for his role in pioneering the first large content delivery networks. He helped create Akamai's distributed network and is an Akamai Fellow.

Dom Robinson is the co-Founder and Director of Innovations at ide3as-company, UK. TVConnect 2014 awarded him as one of the 100 most influential people worldwide in TV and Media.