Streaming Successfully:

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• Streaming Successfully
• A Big Event Case Study from
• University of Pennsylvania
• Mayumi (my-you-me) Hirtzel

DISCLAIMER Any personal opinions or comments
expressed in this presentation are those of the
individual presenter and do not represent the
viewpoints or interests of the University of
Pennsylvania or of AHECTA.
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University of PennsylvaniasCommencement 2006
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Presidents OfficeGoals

• Extend celebration beyond 20,000 audience members
  in stadium
• Reach out to distant and international family
  members
• Provide quality experience of ceremony and
  excitement

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Presidents OfficeScope of Work

• Partner with trusted, reliable technology vendors
  
• Us or You!
• Market event to all viewers, both on- and
  off-campus
• Design, test, and publish Web pages for event and
  for review of event

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Penn Video Network (PVN)Goals

• Deliver client and audience satisfaction
• It wont read from the audience.
• Provide reliable audio-visual cable signal and
  streaming video to entire campus
• Partner with Networking department to deliver
  streaming to lt1000 off-campus viewers

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OverviewLocations and Distances
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PVN Scope of WorkPreparation

• Weigh risks and advantages of direct audio-visual
  feed vs. remote encoding
• Deploy cable to stadium before event
• Provide power and network access to handle
  450K-bit stream to off-campus viewers
• 450 56 128 256
• Monitor signal testing quality during test
  stages

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PVN Scope of WorkCATV Technology

• CATV return path ("T" channels)
• Operate modulator on-site
• Receive and de-modulate at PVN headend, and then
  at encoding location
• Techs at each turnaround
• Change in 2006 Single-mode fiber from Event
  Location to Encoding Location ( .5 mile / .8 km)

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PVN Scope of WorkStreaming Technology

• RealServer (RealPlayer)
• Legacy of use on campus
• Three encoders to serve combination of on- and
  off-campus viewers
• Cross-platform and -browser
• Firefox 1.x (Mac and PC)
• Safari 1.x/2.0 (Mac)
• IE 6.x (PC)
• includes one redundancy machine

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Estimating Costs (Freebies Bad!)

• General concerns when invoicing client
• Competent staff
• This may mean outside vendors for at least your
  first year, but consider it a hands-on learning
  experience
• Realistic man-hours (prep, test, monitor)
• Remember to bill properly for time!
• Technology already available, or new?
• Demands of technology (power, network)

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Reducing Costs

• One year makes all the difference
• New Technology does not have to be an annual cost
• Experienced staff Fewer staff

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Website OverviewPre- and Day-of Page

• Test, test, test!

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PVN Scope of WorkLive Event

• Monitor signal quality during event
• Provide live, on-call helpline
• Encode and stream 56K, 128K, 256K-bit streams to
  lt400 simultaneous PennNet (Beansidhe) viewers

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PennNet Network Status

• Gb connection to the Internet
• High Bandwidth / Low Latency Core
• Redundantly Switched Gb Core
• 100Mbs Building Feeds (75 campus)

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PennNet Network Status

• Layer-Switched Building Networks
• 10/100BaseTX Switches in most buildings
• QOS (Qual o Serv) can be provided based on
  minimum and maximum bandwidth requirements, and
  prioritizing of traffic

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Akamai Technology (1)
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Akamai Technology (2)

• (3) P4 2.8Ghz, 60GB HD, 384MB RAM (2004 models
  Thanks, Bono!)
• Osprey Encoding cards with Simulstream
• 1 Main Encoding system and one mirror for
  redundancy
• Akamai portal is configured to receive both
  streams
• If main encoder fails, Akamai rolls over
  automatically to a redundancy system

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Akamai Technology (3)

• Stream bitrates 56K, 128K, 256Kb streams, to
  lt1000 simultaneous viewers
• Technically, no cap on Akamai see your contract
  for details
• Send 450Kb stream size to Akamai servers via two
  encoders
• 450 56 128 256

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Akamai Technology (4)

• Monitoring and Reporting of Live Streams
• Akamai Management Center
• Total number of concurrent connections
• Data throughput
• Geographic map of connection

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Website OverviewPodcasts (1)

• Podcasts information for Pre-, Day-of, and
  Archival Event

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Website OverviewPodcasts (2)
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Live ReportsStreaming Traffic - Timestamp

• 855 24.97333333
• 900 38.15666667
• 905 52.37333333
• 910 64.6
• 915 79.14
• 920 96.61
• 925 109.1066667
• 930 127.88
• 935 143.8866667
• 940 161.7966667
• 945 185.3366667
• 950 211.3366667
• 955 231.2833333
• 1000 252.2033333
• 1005 273.8366667
• 1010 296.2633333
• 1015 330.0866667
• 1020 352.11
• 1025 381.49

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Live ReportsStreaming Traffic Timestamp 2

• 1100 520.7333333
• 1105 536.41
• 1110 551.39
• 1115 563.1033333
• 1120 543.05
• 1125 501.97
• 1130 483.9466667
• 1135 474.32
• 1140 464.39
• 1145 445.0533333
• 1150 136.2766667
• 1155 14.01666667
• 1200 12.89
• 1205 12
• 1210 12
• 1215 11.39
• 1220 9.213333333
• 1225 8
• 1230 8

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Live ReportsStreaming Traffic - Geographic

• Rank Geographic Area Hits Served
• 1 Pennsylvania 1,554
• 2 Other USA 1,139
• 3 India 138
• 4 Italy 94
• 5 Venezuela 63
• 6 France 49
• 7 Bulgaria 34
• 8 China 31
• 9 Argentina 29
• 10 Japan 27
• 11 Hong Kong 24
• 12 Malaysia 23
• 13 Germany 22
• 14 Romania 19
• 15 Bahrain 18
• 16 United Kingdom 16
• 17 Australia 14
• 18 United Arab Emirates 14

• Rank Geographic Area Hits Served
• 23 Poland 8
• 24 Canada 8
• 25 Greece 7
• 26 Ireland 6
• 27 New Zealand 6
• 28 Norway 6
• 29 Belgium 5
• 30 Qatar 5
• 31 Denmark 3
• 32 Israel 3
• 33 Jamaica 3
• 34 Turkey 3
• 35 Guam 2
• 36 Guatemala 2
• 37 Switzerland 2
• 38 Thailand 2
• 39 Aruba 1
• 40 Colombia 1

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Live ReportsPennNet and Akamai
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Live ReportsTotal Edge Hits (Akamai)
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Live ReportsConcurrent Streams (Akamai)
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Live ReportsBandwidth Usage (Akamai)
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Live ReportsOrganization Report (PennNet)
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Live ReportsProcessing Time (PennNet)
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Archive ReportsGeneral Summary (PennNet)

• Session Analysis
• Total Connections     6715 streams
• Bytes SentTotal 164.579380014
  gigabytesAverage 24.5092151919583 megabytes
  (per stream)
• BitrateAverage 222.754799404319 kbps (per
  stream)Single Maximum 229.999 kbps (in some
  stream)Total Maximum 14719.936 kbps (greatest
  total upload bitrate for server on record)
• Program started at Fri-16-Jun-2006 1634.
  Analysed requests from Mon-15-May-2006 1217 to
  Fri-16-Jun-2006 1614 (32.16 days).

• General Summary
• This report contains overall statistics.
• (Figures in parentheses refer to the 7-day period
  ending 16-Jun-2006 1634).
• Successful requests 6,526 (113)
• Average successful requests per day 202 (16)
• Failed requests 189 (0)
• Distinct files requested 1 (1)
• Distinct hosts served 3,295 (68)
• Data transferred 153.276 gigabytes (3.327
  gigabytes)
• Average data transferred per day 4.765 gigabytes
  (486.794 megabytes)

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Archive ReportsDaily Report (PennNet)
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Archive ReportsOrganization Report (PennNet)
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Archive ReportsProcessing Time Report (PennNet)
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Thank you!

• Questions?
• Mayumi Hirtzel
• University of Penn
• (not Penn State)
• hirtzel_at_isc.upenn.edu
• http//www.upenn.edu/video/