Cedexis for Videogo.cedexis.com/rs/cedexis/images/Cedexis-for-Video.pdf · The Case for Multi-CDN Delivery for Video ... CEDEXIS FOR VIDEO As companies expand internationally, they

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Cedexis for Video

September 2015

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© 2015 Cedexis. All rights reserved.

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Abstract ...............................................................................................................................................3

The Case for Multi-CDN Delivery for Video ................................................................................ 3

CDN Maturity Model for Video ....................................................................................................... 5

Optimize the Complete Visitor Experience .................................................................................6

The Advantages of Cedexis for Video ........................................................................................... 7

Presenting Cedexis Openmix .......................................................................................................... 7

Using Multi-CDN Solutions for Video Delivery ...........................................................................8

Multi-CDN for Video QoS Improvements ................................................................................................8

Inside the Numbers ...........................................................................................................................9

Massmotionmedia .......................................................................................................................................10

Multi-CDN for Demand Spikes .................................................................................................................10

Multi-CDN for Regional Improvement ................................................................................................... 11

Mobile Video Optimization Using Global Cloud and Data Center Architecture ............................ 11

Conclusion ........................................................................................................................................12

Appendix A: Implementing Multi-CDN Video Delivery with Cedexis ....................................13

Openmix DNS Interface ................................................................................................................. 14

Openmix HTTP Interface for Online Video Platforms ............................................................. 15

Openmix HTTP Interface for HLS Clients ................................................................................... 15

Mid-stream Switching with the Openmix HTTP API ................................................................ 16

Appendix B: Glossary of Terms .....................................................................................................16

Table of Contents



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Abstract

If your business is providing video content or a platform for its delivery, you know that

consumers have little tolerance for anything except perfect performance. As Over the

Top (OTT) delivery has become more prevalent, many content aggregators and media

companies now wrestle with ensuring optimal online video delivery. Tactics such as

quality encoding and use of adaptive bitrate can help these organizations do so. Use

of multiple delivery partners is increasingly recognized as one of the most effective

methods for producing quality video playback.

Multi-CDN and hybrid-CDN solutions provide best-in-class regional performance,

100 percent content availability, dynamic control of content, and optimal overall

cost-effectiveness. Top online video providers rely on some form of multi-CDN or

hybrid-CDN solution to ensure quality video content delivery, however they typically

use a warm standby solution. This method uses one primary CDN with another on

standby, which helps availability but does not improve performance.

This paper will focus on best practices for multi-CDN and hybrid-CDN video

delivery, pointing to real-world solutions and verifiable metrics that demonstrate the

advantages of these architectures.

The Case for Multi-CDN Delivery for Video

The key business requirements for video delivery are exceptional video Quality of

Service (QoS) metrics, ensured 100 percent availability, and reduced costs. These

three elements are of mission critical importance:

1. Video-user QoS metrics for both Video on Demand (VOD) and streaming video

can be dramatically improved using performance-based traffic management.

Crowd-sourced Internet performance metrics provide real-time benefits to

session routing and the resulting quality of experience.

2. The billions of Real User Measurements (RUM) collected by the Cedexis

community each day show that every CDN has periodic localized availability

issues, commonly associated with congestion peaks. No CDN is 100 percent

available. To get to 100 percent, one must federate (or combine) multiple CDNs.



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3. Consumer expectations for video resolution are constantly increasing, driving up

costs of delivery. Cost and scale cannot be separated. To scale a service, a smart

IT or operations executive must understand how to manage vendors and deploy

services that match demand in a cost-effective manner. At scale, online video

providers must adopt multi-CDN or hybrid-CDN strategies to match costs with

optimum performance.

From a technical perspective, a key innovation that feeds the case for the

superiority of multi-CDN and hybrid-CDN architectures for video is segmented

adaptive bitrate streaming over HTTP. With this technology, the source

video is encoded at different bitrates. Each distinct bitrate asset is then broken

into segments that last from two to ten seconds. The video player switches

between the different bitrate segments using the user’s bandwidth, buffer

queues, and other factors to determine the best bitrate given the situation. In

contrast, the outdated progressive download method receives an entire file

or stream at the same bitrate from the same origin, regardless of changes in

performance, availability, and bandwidth.

“With adaptive bitrate streaming, every two or four seconds, you have a chance to get content from a different server, with seamless failover between CDNs. You don’t get that benefit with progressive.” Will Law, Chief Architect, Media Division, Akamai

The landscape is changing within the CDN market, making multi-CDN and hybrid-

CDN solutions more prevalent. Operators like Comcast, Telstra, and Verizon made

major investments to get into the CDN space. Regional CDNs have materialized,

focusing on specific markets or geographies. Many content owners and aggregators

are reevaluating their single CDN strategies and considering active-active multi-CDN

strategies that push content directly to the “eyeball networks,” with CDNs as a part of

their offering. This strategy provides superior performance for the viewer.



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CDN Maturity Model for Video

Companies deploying online video begin a common evolutionary process with either

single origin architecture or a CDN for successful online video delivery. All CDNs

are subject to outages, however minor, that affect video consumers. When viewers

experience video buffering, they quickly abandon video and Web sessions—making

poor QoS the fastest way to lose video consumers.

As needs increase and cost of quality delivery mounts, organizations will look for

cost-effective delivery alternatives to a single CDN. Companies learn they can use

a multi-CDN approach to control costs through better vendor management and

achieve 100 percent availability simultaneously.

Multi-CDN architecture could’ve prevented many well-known outages of live

events courtesy of active-active multi-CDN architecture. CDNs have vastly different

footprints and no CDN is the best in all locations. For this reason, it is common to

deploy a multi-CDN approach to support a broad geography.

Every CDN experiences some downtime. A multi-CDN approach brings online video 100% availability.



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As companies expand internationally, they realize that a solution that worked

well for the United States may not be optimal for China, Brazil, or other global

markets. When organizations reach a certain size, they can further improve

performance and cut costs by deploying their own infrastructure to support and

augment video.

Optimize the Complete Visitor Experience

The Cedexis solution allows clients to leverage multiple vendors and seamlessly

switch from one to another during sessions. This keeps Cedexis at the vanguard of

high-performance multi-CDN delivery.

The end-user experience commonly starts with a website or mobile-app session. It

is essential to optimize the entire experience of content discovery, player download,

and video playback to attract and retain consumers. Multi-CDN and hybrid-CDN

architectures ensure the entire experience is measured and optimized.

This CDN maturity model illustrates how companies typically evolve. Not every company makes it all the way to hybrid-CDN model, but that advanced approach is more and more common. Most

important, almost all companies reach content delivery needs that are met with the multi-CDN model.

CDN Maturity Model: Web Scale with QoS



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The Advantages of Cedexis for Video

Blending together service providers and private-content delivery elements in the

right manner can make for seamless delivery. The attraction of multi-vendor delivery

includes the following:

• Improving QoS metrics via reduced buffering, increased video bitrate

consumption, and reduced video start time

• Maintaining cost-effectiveness

• Mitigating risk of availability issues

Cedexis Radar measures CDN availability and determines which provider will provide

the best QoS. Cedexis Openmix uses intelligent real-time data to pick the right CDN

at the right time.

Presenting Cedexis Openmix

Cedexis Openmix is a next-generation, data-driven, Global Traffic Management

system (GTM) that routes content delivery from over seventy Points of Presence

(PoPs) worldwide. By continuously scoring public CDNs, clouds, and data centers with

global, real-time data, Openmix provides a platform for our customers to optimize

performance across multiple delivery channels.

Cedexis Radar sets Openmix DNS apart from other GTMs. Radar leverages billions

of RUMs a day, from over 45K ISPs and networks worldwide. With Radar measuring

real-time performance of every major CDN and cloud provider in the world, content

A Total Solution: Comprehensive Media Optimization



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owners improve Key Performance Indicators (KPIs) such as increased engagement,

reduced buffering, and accelerated bitrates.

Using Multi-CDN Solutions for Video Delivery

Multi-CDN for Video QoS Improvements

Quality of Experience (QoE) directly impacts viewer abandonment, and the best

way to improve QoE is through better QoS. Delivering the highest QoS possible to

all users is of the utmost importance for video. Maintaining QoS is vital to providing

HD video for sporting events, VOD entertainment, and a host of other instances.

Recently, Cedexis performed a series of customer audits where Cedexis customers

were independently measuring video QoS metrics. The question we wanted to

answer was simple: Does using Cedexis improve video QoS metrics?

With Cedexis Openmix providing latency-based load balancing, our customer saw considerable improvement across all performance metrics.

Improvement with Cedexis Openmix

Openmix realized over 50% improvement in buffering. Video start time improved by almost 20% and video start failures were reduced by a whopping 65%.

The Case for Cedexis Openmix

With multi-CDN load balancing, our customer saw a 40%

improvement in re-buffering.

Latency-based load balancing improved average video start time by almost 20%, to just over four seconds.

Start failures fell by nearly 50% with latency-based load balancing

using Cedexis.

“For PBS Digital, having

100% uptime and great

performing video is critical.

We implemented Cedexis

specifically to improve our

Video Quality of Service

and it’s been a great

decision.”

—Mike Norton, Senior Director of Technical Operations, PBS Digital



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Inside the Numbers

A second set of tests had even more impressive results. We measured five unique

algorithms for load-balanced video traffic.

• No Cedexis

• Best latency with 80 percent availability

• Best throughput with 80 percent availability

• Jump only when 400kbps improvement can be achieved

• Jump only when 200kbps improvement can be achieved

We realized across-the-board improvement in every category.

The data clearly shows the benefit of multi-CDN architecture using Openmix:

• Favoring latency improves video start time and re-buffering ratio

• Favoring throughput increases bitrate, which we can safely correlate to video quality

• Without Cedexis, we saw the worst bitrate, slowest startup time, and highest

re-buffering ratio

Real Results, Reliable and Cost-Effective: Video Use Case with Cedexis

Latency-based routing gives a nearly 20% improvement in average video

startup time.

Every Cedexis-based solution saw an improvement in re-buffering over single-origin video delivery.

Multi-CDN, latency-based routing improved average video bitrate across

the board.

Tuning for network performance by managing the multi-CDN algorithms directly improved the client-side video experience. In each graph, the

highlighted solution performed the best for that metric.



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Massmotionmedia

Since 2007, Massmotionmedia has been serving providers of video content. It aims

to deliver the highest quality video experience to end users anywhere, on any device,

with the highest levels of performance.

Massmotionmedia uses Openmix to optimize its rich-content campaigns and end-

user performance. For each campaign, Openmix chooses the optimal CDN by

evaluating cost against bandwidth variability for a market or geography. The viewers

get the highest possible quality of service.

Multi-CDN for Demand Spikes

Websites facing traffic spikes often struggle to keep up with demand. At times, a single

CDN isn’t enough to meet short-term demand spikes, and additional resources need

to be brought online. Web-based television providers are particularly vulnerable to this

kind of traffic demand, especially when popular shows air new episodes.

Federating the demand for video across multiple CDNs makes traffic spikes far easier

to manage. For instance, a major television network in the United States integrated

Cedexis solutions into its content-delivery platform in anticipation of the release of a

new season for its most popular television series via streaming video.

“For us, response times and

bandwidth are both taken

into consideration. Cedexis

proposed routing based on

the real-time measurement

of throughput for each

partner. There was no

better way to address

our needs. CDNs with

high bandwidth capacity

are considered, but it’s

important that they show

good response times in key

countries.”

—Jocelyn Guyon, Massmotionmedia

Traffic Spike Handled Easily with Multi-CDN Approach

300% traffic spike

Evenly distributed across multiple CDNs to avoid overloading either CDN, but still meets traffic commitments



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When the new season launched, the traffic spike the network had planned for hit.

As the first episode of the new season aired, website traffic and streaming video

bandwidth nearly tripled. Thanks to the use of federated multiple CDNs with

Cedexis Openmix, the network saw reduced abandonment and much better video

performance for their viewers.

Multi-CDN for Regional Improvement

Web community innovator eYeka is arguably the world’s biggest co-creativity

playground. With over 260K members worldwide, it provides an international

crowdsourcing platform that connects creative individuals with brands to boost return

on marketing investment for all.

When eYeka decided to take the obvious next step—expanding service to China—

Cedexis was there to help. Radar was used to audit existing CDN architecture,

measuring its real-time performance throughout mainland China. The results revealed

that improvements were needed for successful growth.

eYeka deployed Openmix to improve the quality of video content delivery and ensure

consistent performance throughout the country. Video downloads improved by 77

percent, and eYeka’s subscriber base increased as a direct result.

“We have total control over performance and can reconfigure delivery partners where and how we want, to make sure our performance is always top.” Eric Pho, Operating Manager, eYeka

Mobile Video Optimization Using Global Cloud and

Data Center Architecture

Tango offers free mobile social networking, video, and

communication services to users worldwide. A top 15 Android

and top 100 iOS app, Tango experienced rapid growth that

challenged its technology infrastructure.

“By implementing Cedexis

with our multi-CDN,

Viaplay was able to

improve our rebuffering

and reduce ‘Video Start

Failures.’ We also have

an increase in ‘Average

Bitrate.’ These incredible

quality of service

improvements help make

Viaplay a top OTT service

in Europe.”

—Jens Köpsén, Head of Content Delivery, Viaplay


https://en.eyeka.com/


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“Explosive growth required an intelligent and responsive infrastructure evolution at Tango to ensure the highest quality experience for all of our users, wherever in the world they might be.” Brian Hansen, Senior Director of Operations, Tango

Using Openmix, Tango quickly began to

utilize flexible and cost-effective public

clouds without having to invest in server

hardware and other costly infrastructure.

Openmix deployed intelligent global load

balancing to expand capabilities and

improve worldwide customer experience at

a very low cost.

Tango also leveraged Openmix to

ensure seamless scalability, 100 percent

availability, and the highest quality user

experience possible, all without incurring

the time and expense of implementing its

own infrastructure.

Conclusion

Tools like Cedexis for video are perfect ways to improve video delivery performance

and insure 100 percent availability. The evidence shows the positive impact an

optimized multi-CDN and multi-cloud architecture can have.

As more and more content providers adopt these strategies, users will grow

increasingly intolerant of poor performing video streams. Any enterprise fueled by

content delivery should seriously consider implementing a multi-CDN or multi-

cloud architecture.

Cedexis Openmix helps Tango deliver the best quality of

experience to its video chat users



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Appendix A: Implementing Multi-CDN Video Delivery with Cedexis

There are two general strategies used to implement Cedexis for video. The first and

most common method uses DNS records. A Canonical Name record, or CNAME, is

used to route users to the best-performing CDN or cloud infrastructure element in the

vendor’s portfolio.

The second method uses the HTTP interface at the video player or CMS level to request the

best-performing CDN, given a set of configured priorities and KPIs.

How We Do It: Making Data Actionable

This diagram illustrates the two most common configurations for a multi-CDN Cedexis for video solution:

1. Openmix DNS Interface

» Query from player or page or per ASN across multiple platforms

» Each query returns the best-performing content-delivery platform

2. Openmix HTTP API

» Query per ASN across multiple platforms

» The query returns the best-performing CDN

» JSON responses from HTTP Openmix allow for the player or CMS to dynamically alter

behavior to achieve top performance

The Cedexis Openmix HTTP interface provides several important advantages over

the CNAME method. First, it allows for a tightly coupled video player integration and

simultaneously lets Cedexis make routing decisions out-of-band. Second, it allows

“We’ve seen a 65% decrease

in buffering incidents since

deploying Cedexis Openmix.

These QoS improvements

deliver better quality to

the end user, resulting

in incredibly low viewer

abandonment rates.”

—Manik Bambha, Chief Digital Officer & CTO, ViewLift



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for greater video client intelligence by considering multiple metrics, such as device

and browser type. Finally, the HTTP interface provides greater levels of flexibility in

decision making.

Openmix DNS Interface

The Openmix HTTP service will be available in Q3 of 2015 and will offer powerful, flexible optimization for video content delivery.

Client to Openmix for Routing Decision (DNS)

Many Cedexis customers stream video effectively across multiple CDNs using Openmix for routing decisions. The implementation is clean, with no player

integration required. Long-term maintenance is simple. While the development of the HTTP interface will provide enormous advantages, we expect many of our video customers to continue to use this method. It provides important QoS improvements

for video, such as reduced buffering and increased consumption of video.

DNS queries to Openmix are

typically performed at any time:

page load, video startup, or

mid-stream



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Openmix HTTP Interface for Online Video Platforms

Openmix HTTP Interface for HLS Clients

CMS to Openmix for Routing Decision

With an Openmix HTTP Interface implementation, the client can pull the best-performing CDNs (or clouds) using the HTTP interface. It can then be stored and used

to control CDN selection from the CMS. This is a great strategy when the client wants to evaluate its CDNs in an ordered way. It worked great for Online Video Platforms (OVPs)

that control much of the experience from the CMS. It can also be useful in instances when the media company wants to control the CDN distribution from the CMS.

Client to Openmix for Routing Decision (Web Services)

Using Web services allows for control from the player. Initial routing of the CDN is done within the player. Openmix HTTP is consulted for the best-performing CDN.

Other player-centric factors can also be used in routing decisions.

Web service (HTTP) queries to

Openmix are typically performed

at video startup or periodically

during video playout.



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Mid-stream Switching with the Openmix HTTP API

Appendix B: Glossary of Terms

Term Description

Cedexis Openmix

Premier cloud-based global load balancing system. With over 60 points-of-presence worldwide, Openmix makes billions of intelligent decisions for our customers every day. These decisions are based on RUM measurements from Cedexis Radar as well as customer-defined KPIs. The Openmix solution is entirely scriptable, giving powerful, flexible decision making to customers.

Cedexis Radar Benchmarks

A crowd-sourced community comprised of all major CDNs and cloud platform providers, along with hundreds of global enterprises. This community measures the real-time performance of CDNs and clouds as seen by real website and mobile application users. Radar collects billions of real user measurements (RUM) each day.

Cedexis Radar Latency Test Object

A standardized 1-byte object that is delivered via 100-plus CDN and cloud platforms to provide a consistent RUM measurement of availability and latency.

Cedexis Radar Throughput Test Object

A standardized 100KB object that is delivered via 100-plus CDN and cloud platforms to provide a consistent RUM measurement of throughput.

Client to Openmix for Chunk Redirect (Web Services)

This method is similar to the HTTP interface described above, except that the origin can be switched mid-stream if there are availability or performance issues. This ensures 100 percent availability of the video stream and minimizes buffering.

Web service (HTTP) queries

to Openmix are trypically

performed at video start-up or

periodically during video playout



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Term Description

Digital Rights Management

A class of technologies used by publishers, copyright holders, and media enterprises with the intent to control the use of digital content and devices after sale. (See Licensing)

Encoder Software or hardware that turns a video source into a format that a distribution method (such as CDN) or end-user player can understand.

HTTP Streaming

Video delivery method using HTTP encapsulation. Examples include HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), HTTP Dynamic Streaming (HDS), and Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH). These technologies are specifically built to deliver video. Many content providers are moving to these methods because of lower costs and higher quality.

Licensing Licensing is a commercial agreement on how the content can be distributed and who can view it, usually at a geographic country level. This licensing can determine how much security a broadcaster will need for that asset. Most content that is created by studios is licensed. Companies protect licensed content with Digital Rights Management (DRM) schemes.

Live Video delivered directly to the end user from the source, such as a video camera pointed at a performer.

Long Form Video content lasting over 15 minutes in length and usually high quality. Feature films would be long-form content.

Long Tail Content that is not very popular. Unpopular content is very hard to cache as it is not requested often. This means the likelihood of content being in the cache is very low.

Metadata Information about a video. Metadata includes information on how long the asset is available to end users, media duration, genre, and other information. This is usually encoded with the video and is stored to be used with the CMS or Digital Asset Management (DAM) system.

Paywall A paywall is a system to securely monetize digital content, such as pay-per-view. Most media companies make money either through advertising or through pay-per-view. A paywall is typically a monthly subscription service.

Post-roll A video clip, such as a sponsorship message, that is shown after the main content is delivered.

Pre-roll A video clip, such as a sponsorship message, shown before the main content is shown.



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With deep experience in delivery networks and performance optimization,

Cedexis is the global expert in multi-cloud and multi-CDN strategies. Today,

over 500 media, retail, luxury, and consumer brands count on Cedexis for

100 percent availability, optimal Web performance, flexibility, and choice

that drives revenue and lowers cost and risk.

visit cedexis.com or email [email protected].

Portland, Oregon

317 SW Alder St, #650

Portland, OR 97204

+1 855 CEDEXIS (233-3947)

Paris, France

27 rue Raymond Lefebvre

94250 Gentilly, France

+33 (0)1 79 755 253

Term Description

Progressive Download

The oldest form of video delivery, usually used for smaller pieces of content. The end user uses byte-range HTTP requests to receive content.

Short Form Content that is very popular and extremely cacheable because of the number of requests it receives.

Simulcast A simulcast is when an event is broadcast and also streamed live to the Internet.

Tokenization URL tokenization is the application of a special token at the end of a URL string, for example:

http://media.example.com/asset.flv?token=adfoj09843jrdosfn023r40ivi230nr0e

This token authenticates the asset and user to the server receiving the request. The token usually specifies the right assignment, duration, and validity of the request.

Tokens are commonly used to protect assets from deep-linking. Tokenization is used by many agencies and studios for a “good enough” level of protection against misuse of content.

Transcoding or Transmuxing

Changing from one format to another, usually done on the fly. Most CDNs offer some form of transmuxing product.

True Streaming

As opposed to progressive download, this method is analogous to broadcast radio or television. It is expensive to use as it requires specific server architectures. True streaming is currently falling out of favor and being replaced by HTTP streaming.

VOD Video on demand, which is pre-recorded content stored for future use.



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Cedexis for Videogo.cedexis.com/rs/cedexis/images/Cedexis-for-Video.pdf · The Case for Multi-CDN Delivery for Video ... CEDEXIS FOR VIDEO As companies expand internationally, they