THE SUN STREAMING SYSTEM

REDEFINING IPTV WITH

THE SUN STREAMING SYSTEM

Video-on-Demand (VoD) and Network Personal Video Recording (nPVR) for an Open Systems World

White PaperApril 2007

Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Table of Contents

Executive Summary . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1

Redefining Video over IP . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

Personalized television services . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2

The Sun Streaming System: open, innovative, and scalable . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4

Key Sun Streaming System technology innovations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Sun Streaming System Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 9

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 10

The Sun Fire X4500 server . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 13

Sun Fire X64 servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Network switching and configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 17

Sun Streaming Software Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Software components and architecture overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 19

Sun Streaming System management . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 21

Failure detection and recovery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 23

The Sun Streaming System in Context . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Integrated third-party components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26

Sun Streaming System interactions with third party components . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 28

Deploying the Sun Streaming System for IPTV . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

Video distribution considerations . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 31

The Sun Streaming System in a headend . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 32

Sun Streaming System design example . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 33

Configuring the Sun Streaming System with

the Sun Customer Ready Program . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 37

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 40

Executive Summary


Executive Summary

Offering video services over existing IP networks holds considerable promise in terms of

new revenue and business growth opportunities for video service providers. Home

video in all of its forms is now a large and growing business, and video on demand

(VoD), networked personal video recorders (nPVR), and interactive video services can

offer considerable convenience and tailored services in an already strong market. Early

indications are that a large percentage of broadband customers would subscribe to

interactive video services, with considerable potential for growth.

This promise is offset by the challenges of designing and deploying scalable, reliable,

and cost-effective infrastructure for television services over IP networks (IPTV). Both

subscribers and operators expect a highly reliable service and downtime is a threat to

customer satisfaction. In addition, since IPTV requires significantly more components

than a conventional broadcast video service, it is important that architectures support

cost-effective redundancy and failover mechanisms, along with systematic scalability to

match growing demand.

Unfortunately, traditional disk based video server architectures often lack the scalability

needed to address a large customer base with an appetite for a diverse range of video

titles. The relatively low number of streams served by individual disk-based servers

means that very large numbers of servers and disks must be deployed to serve

anticipated growth. These large deployments drive accompanying complexity and

server sprawl, and add to networking and system administration cost burden.

Complicating matters, many IPTV solutions have proprietary elements that serve to lock

organizations into the innovations of a single vendor.

The innovative Sun Streaming System overcomes these issues with a solution that

meets scalability, cost, and availability requirements with an open and standards based

approach. With high-speed memory-based streaming and a significant degree of

integration, the Sun Streaming System provides a cost-effective end-to-end solution for

centralized interactive television networks capable of supporting the largest and most

demanding deployment requirements. This paper describes the challenges faced by

video service operators as they deploy IPTV, and also describes the Sun Streaming

System components and software architecture. Examples are also provided to illustrate

how the Sun Streaming System fits into video services network architecture based on

open standards.

2

Redefining Video over IP


Chapter 1


Consumers of video services are moving away from traditional broadcast models

toward services that provide them with more channels and more choice, both in how

and what they view.

• Personal video recorder (PVR) services and digital video recorder (DVR) devices are

becoming common, primarily for time-shifting of regular TV programming, but also

for skipping mass-market advertisements that are not targeted to individual

consumers.

• Video on demand (VoD) is now available in many major cable markets, and the size of

content libraries continues to increase.

• Broadcast television advertising revenue is flattening in many major cable markets,

as advertisers shift spending to more targeted advertising opportunities.

These trends are promising indeed for video service operators and others poised to

provide flexible digital IP based television services over their broadband networks.

Personalized television services

The opportunity to deliver personalized video entertainment to each subscriber is

significant. Innovative and targeted services promise to capture new customers and aid

in retention of those customers for other services. Service providers stand to gain from

providing “triple-play” strategies, delivering voice, video, and data to their customer

base. The result can be more choice for customers while helping to enable higher

revenue streams for service providers.

IPTV opportunities

Growth in spending on video entertainment in the past few years has coincided with

reduced spending on other services such as long-distance and local telephony. While

communication and video entertainment services are certainly distinct, this trend may

serve service providers by equalizing the revenue opportunities with existing

customers. For others, IP networks provide an ideal medium for delivering interactive

digital video services. Coupled with existing investments in network infrastructure

made over the last 10 years, a significant opportunity exists in delivering on-demand or

interactive video and television services using Internet broadband architecture. This

opportunity is particularly attractive given new technology advances that are driving

down the cost per individual delivered video stream.

3



IPTV broadband requirements

To be cost-effective, IPTV architecture must leverage existing IP broadband

infrastructure. In addition, any proposed architecture must be able to scale, both in the

number of streams delivered, and in the basic manageability of the infrastructure

involved. IPTV architectures will fail unless they can scale to handle the growth of

subscribers and the shift from standard to high-definition TV.

IPTV requires a high-bandwidth IP network connected to the home. Fortunately, a

number of broadband network topologies are available to deliver IP packets over

copper wires (xDSL) or fiber (PON, FTTC, or FTTH topologies). Through these

technologies, multiple subscribers are aggregated at the logical level onto higher-speed

connections, giving the subscriber a dedicated switched IP packet connection. This

aggregation takes place with either virtual circuit multiplexing (Level 1), or via Ethernet

switching (Level 2), or IP routing (Level 3). In any of these scenarios, the subscriber is

provided with a dedicated, switched IP packet connection.

Despite the use of Internet technology, IPTV has requirements that are distinct from a

conventional Internet services:

• Unlike Internet services, interactive television and video services do not originate

from the Internet but rather from the internal network of the video service operator,

reducing demands on Internet bandwidth.

• Unlike traditional IP based services that can accept some level of packet loss or

retransmissions, video services require reliable transmission of packets to the

subscriber. Broadband networks must have the necessary bandwidth, and must be

engineered to provide the high-quality services that customers demand.

• Unlike traditional IP applications, video service traffic is largely unidirectional as it

originates from a video server and terminates on a set-top box.

The exact bandwidth provisioned per subscriber depends on the encoding of the video

stream, the resolution of the video content, and the number of streams supported per

household. A data rate of 2 Mbps is sufficient for one H.264/AVC standard definition

stream, whereas a high definition stream will require approximately 8 Mbps.

Deployment considerations

Deployment considerations for IPTV involve whether to select centralized or distributed

topologies, or a mixture of both. A centralized headend or video hub office (VHO) with

optical transmission streams to locations of broadband distribution is generally lower

cost than a distributed video server architecture that replicates content and video

streams in multiple locations. The economic trade-off is the cost of transmitting video

streams over high-bandwidth fiber versus the cost of replicating and maintaining video

servers in remote distribution hubs.

4



With the latest optical transmission technology, it is now possible to transmit high

bandwidth video over long distances. For example, 80 Gbps video can be sent using

coarse wavelength division multiplexing (CWDM) and 320 Gbps video can be sent using

dense wavelength division multiplexing (DWDM). As long as fiber is available, there is

virtually no limitation to the number of virtual private video streams that can be

transmitted from a central location, greatly reducing equipment and operational costs.

Since all new generations of last-mile access broadband technologies can handle the

necessary data rates per subscriber, the real challenge is in engineering a service

delivery platform that can be operated and managed cost-effectively. Most existing

video delivery platforms rely on very large numbers of distributed, small-scale video

servers — making it difficult to provide a cost-effective and compelling service:

• Supporting thousands of geographically distributed servers is an expensive and

complex challenge

• Distributed, small-scale locations often provide a hostile environment that reduces

the reliability of equipment

• Distributed resources are difficult to share, leading to resource replication, content

replication, and increased cost

The Sun Streaming System: open, innovative, and scalable

Responding to these challenges and opportunities, the Sun Streaming System

represents a truly disruptive solution for service providers who want to increase average

revenue by delivering IPTV services to their subscribers. By tightly integrating best-of-

breed products from Sun and key third parties, the Sun Streaming System provides a

focused and scalable streaming solution with significant advantages, including:

• Reducing the cost of deploying and scaling the streaming media platform and

therefore reducing capital expenses

• Reducing operational expenses for the IP television business through consolidation of

equipment and simplification of the network architecture

• Reducing both cost and time-to-market for the introduction of new services through

the aggressive use of open Internet standards

The Sun Streaming System reduces the cost of IP television services to the extent that

service providers can aggressively market these new personalized television services to

their subscribers to drive large-scale adoption and use. The result can be increased

5



bandwidth usage, increased revenue, and greater subscriber loyalty. The Sun Streaming

System represents an integrated, flexible, and scalable architecture depicted from a

high level in Figure 1.

Figure 1. High-level block-level diagram of the Sun Streaming System

Key benefits of the Sun Streaming System include:

• Improved economics

The Sun Streaming System offers significantly improved economics for video

streaming and content storage. Smaller numbers of high-performance systems

and components coupled with a high level of integration of both servers and

networking eliminates separate networks and boxes. Sun’s solution also provides

considerable consolidation opportunities over traditional video server

infrastructure.

Management of video services is simplified and secured through role-based access

control and authentication. Digital access management and conditional access

system (CAS) integration means that providers aren’t loosing revenue through

theft. An open-systems approach means that the Sun Streaming System is flexible

and integrates well with essential third-party components, easing integration

through open interfaces and providing flexibility for service providers to choose

best of breed third party components.

Supervisor node(s)

Content Controller node(s)

Session Controller node(s)

Import Pre-Processor node(s)

Media Store nodes

Streaming Service nodes

Sun Streaming Software

Streaming Software Servers

(Sun Fire X4100 servers)

Sun Fire X4500 server(s)

Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Swtich(es)

Sun Streaming Hardware

6



• Scalability in multiple dimensions

The Sun Streaming System provides massive scalability that allows operators to

deliver high-capacity unicast video services. The Sun Streaming System provides

multiple, independent dimensions of scalability, including:

– Streaming capacity to serve a very large number of concurrent subscribers with

high-quality video

– Session management capacity to help ensure large numbers of coexisting con-

current sessions, high session setup/teardown rates, and low-latency session

control such as processing trick-play events (fast-forward, pause, rewind)

– Content import capacity to allow a high number of multicast linear-TV streams

and VoD assets to be imported concurrently

– Content storage capacity to support a very large number of video titles

• Integration and consolidation

The Sun Streaming System provides integrated multiplexing, switching, and

optical transmission to simplify configurations and even eliminate the cost of

switched/routed transmission networks.

Key Sun Streaming System technology innovations

The Sun Streaming System can be used as a part of an end-to-end solution for

centralized interactive television networks capable of supporting the largest and most

demanding deployment requirements. The following sections describe the technology

innovations that are key to the functionality of the Sun Streaming System.

• Memory-based streaming, de-coupled from storage

Most conventional video servers are disk based, meaning that they stream video

content directly from hard disk storage. Unfortunately, disk access rates have not

improved significantly over time, imposing fundamental limitations to this

approach. As a result, it is difficult to achieve sustained disk data transfer rates of

more than 150 Mbps per disk drive — corresponding to 75 standard definition

H.264/AVC streams at a data rate of 2 Mbps.

With this performance limit, scaling the number of streams required by a disk-

based streaming solution becomes extremely resource- and space-intensive. For

example, to achieve 1 million streams would require 25,000 disk drives, assuming

that access to these disk drives could be perfectly load balanced. In reality, perfect

load balancing is not feasible, further increasing the number of disk drives

required. The cost, space, power, and reliability issues associated with such a

large number of disk drives make this solution impractical.

The Sun Streaming System architecture addresses the disk bandwidth bottleneck

by using a large amount of solid-state memory as a cache for frequently accessed

content. With up to 1 terabyte (TB) of DRAM memory, the Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switch can cache up to 1,000 hours of frequently accessed high-quality

7



MPEG2 streams. For example, each Sun Fire

™

X4950 Streaming Switch shared

memory system has sufficient bandwidth to service 80,000 simultaneous 4 Mbps

streams or 160,000 2Mbps streams. Within the Sun Streaming System, video

content is stored on Sun Fire X4500 servers that provide content storage in

increments of 24 terabytes. Each Sun Fire X4500 server provides up to 4,700 hours

of high-quality MPEG2 content, including trick-play overhead (indexed fast forward

and rewind streams at multiple speeds). Content is automatically moved from Sun

Fire X4500 servers into the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch cache based on

content access patterns.

• Network integration and consolidation

In a conventional IP television architecture, banks of video servers connect to the

broadband network through a separate switch. This approach can add significant

cost and complexity to video server solutions since the switch has to be able to

handle large amounts of traffic while minimizing packet loss, latency, and jitter.

The Sun Streaming System architecture integrates the video server and video

switching function into the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch, greatly simplifying

both architecture and implementation. The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch

eliminates the need for a separate network switch to cross-connect a large

number of video servers, and solves the problems associated with packet loss,

latency, and jitter. In addition, even though the Sun Streaming System is

comprised of multiple systems and switches, it functions, and is managed as a

singular system.

• Optical transport integration

Conventional IPTV architectures employ separate (active) wavelength division

multiplexer (WDM) optical transport equipment, adding to the complexity of

typical deployments. In contrast, the Sun Streaming System architecture

integrates the WDM laser components directly into the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming

Switch, and requires only a passive WDM multiplexer. This level of integration

eliminates the need for another separate active component, further reducing cost

and increasing reliability. The Sun Streaming System approach is to use a 32

lambda or 40 lambda DWDM optical transport, with one 10 Gbps Ethernet

transport per lambda.

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch directly accepts pluggable XFP DWDM and

does not require separate optical transport equipment, greatly reducing cost.

Inexpensive passive add-on multiplexers are used to add or remove a wavelength

from the fiber. Using 40 lambda DWDM, one optical fiber can carry 400 Gbps, or

100,000 MPEG2 streams at 4 Mbps.

8



• Scalable session management

In a centralized IPTV architecture, a large number of subscribers can be

simultaneously active. Achieving acceptable response times requires considerable

CPU resources to rapidly respond to subscriber requests.

The Sun Streaming System system achieves this level of scalability with multiple

high-density network-based Sun Fire servers based on AMD Opteron

™

processors.

These Sun x64 servers can be scaled independently of other components of the

Sun Streaming System to manage concurrent sessions, provide session setup and

teardown, and handle session control such as receiving and managing trick-play

events (forward, pause, rewind). Individual Sun x64 servers act as

Sun Streaming

Software

nodes.

• Network based redundancy

High availability is a key concern for any system where failure can affect a large

number of customers. One key advantage of the Sun Streaming System is that it

can be deployed in an end-to-end redundant architecture, where the failure of any

single component will not affect video streaming operation. In a Sun Streaming

System configuration, multiple Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches, multiple Sun

Fire X4500 servers, and multiple Sun x64 servers running Sun Streaming Software

can be deployed for scalability and redundancy — resulting in carrier-grade

reliability. This approach also helps minimize both planned and unplanned

downtime through non-disruptive upgrades and repairs.

9

Sun Streaming System Architecture


Chapter 2


The Sun Streaming System is not a single product, but rather a collection of hardware,

software, and networking products designed to function as a single system. The Sun

Streaming System is tested and integrated with third-party asset management

software, IPTV middleware software components, and set top boxes (STBs) to help

accelerate and simplify IPTV deployment (Figure 2).

Figure 2. Sun Streaming System components integrate with third party asset management and middleware elements to deliver interactive video streams to the home

While only individual components are implied by the illustration, Sun Streaming

System hardware components can be deployed in multiples to provide scalability and

high availability.

• Each Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch caches popular streams in up to 1 terabytes of

DDR1 memory, providing scalability and consolidating network infrastructure. Each

switch provides up to 32 10 Gb Ethernet connections, supporting up to 160,000

2 Mbps standard-definition H.264/AVC streams or up to 40,000 8 Mbps high-definition

H.264/AVC streams.

• Each Sun Fire X4500 server directly interfaces to at least one Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switch via a 10 Gb Ethernet connection, and provides 24 terabytes of

storage for video content.

• Multiple Sun x64 servers provide scalability and high-performance resources for a

range of management and control functions, interfacing with third-party asset

management and middleware components. Overall system management, session

control, content control, and import processing functions are provided within Sun

Streaming Software.

Sun Streaming System components and networking architecture are described in this

chapter with Sun Streaming Software open systems architecture covered in

Chapter 3

.

Middleware

Asset

Management

Sun Streaming

Software

Sun FireX4500

Server

Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switch

QAM or

DSLAM

Set Top Box

Head-end or VHO Hub Home

Sun Streaming System

Session

Startup

Stream

Control

Video

10



The Sun Fire X4900 Streaming Switch

The Sun Fire X4900 Streaming Switch represents a key innovation for the Sun Streaming

System. Based on industry-standard technology such as DDR1 memory and an X64

based processor, the switch provides cost-effective scalable memory-based streaming.

Each Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch offers:

• Up to 1 TB of DDR1 memory

• A 320 Gbps non-blocking cross bar switch (1:1 input/output ratio)

• Up to 32 10 Gb Ethernet optical networking ports from wire-speed streaming engines

This architecture helps ensure that even when a large number of unique streams are

requested, the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch continues to deliver at its committed

rates. In addition, innovative switch design provides a variety of benefits, including:

• Minimal cost per stream

With the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch, the Sun Streaming System effectively

de-couples its DRAM based streaming from storage. Coupled with unidirectional

video networks, this approach provides for a very low cost per stream.

• Simple, cost-effective QoS

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch integrates video buffering and caching in a

single switch, with optical transport integration based on industry-standard 10 Gb

Ethernet. With a downstream network organized as a simple tree structure, the

Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch can provide simple, and highly cost-effective

quality of service (QoS).

• Industry-standard technology

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch is based on industry standard technology

such as 10 Gb Ethernet, off-the-shelf DRAM, and an X64 based processor.

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch is provided in a 14 rack-unit (RU) chassis (Figure 3).

Figure 3. The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch provides up to 1 TB of memory-based streaming and considerable network consolidation and transport integration with up to 32 10 Gb Ethernet outputs

11



Switch architecture

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch is specifically designed to move video data

without introducing arbitrary bottlenecks. Each switch provides an integrated cross-bar

switching fabric with a non-blocking 320 Gbps switching capacity. This design approach

taken is distinct from those that might place a processor or buss in the path of video

data. In the Sun Streaming System, video data enters the switch over a 10Gb Ethernet

connection directly from a Sun Fire x4500 server. The 10Gb Ethernet ports on the switch

feed directly into DRAM where the video data is then available for streaming out to

clients. Figure 4 illustrates the functional block-level diagram of the Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switch.

Figure 4. Functional block diagram of the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch

The Sun Streaming Switch is comprised of the following major components:

•

Controller Card

— The x64 based Controller Card provides operational and

management support for the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch. With no local disk

drives, the Controller Card boots remotely from the

Supervisor

node

(a specialized

Sun x64 server running Sun Streaming Software). The controller card schedules

incoming data directly to the Line Cards in DMA mode for maximum throughput.

Network interfaces on the Controller Card are used for the Sun Streaming System

internal network and for management of the switch.

•

Line Card

— Each Line Card provides four on-board FPGA DDR memory controllers and

a total of 64 DDR-1 DIMM slots with 1 GB and 2GB DIMMs supported. With eight Line

Cards, a single Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch can provide up to 512 DIMM slots in

a 14U chassis. One DIMM size is supported for all Line Cards in a switch, and the

switch initially supports a maximum of 1 terabyte of memory. The design provides

scalability since no streaming data traverses the link to the controller card.

IntelCPU

PCIHub

INTELDual GE

ECC DDR

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Controller

ECC DDR

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PCI

PCI

PCI

PCI

64-bit

Controller Card

(One per chassis)

Line Card

(Up to eight per chassis)

Optical Card

(Up to two per chassis)

Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch Chassis

Fans

Str

eam

ing

Data

16 x 10 Gb Ethernet

ports per card

C2SP

ECC DDR ECC DDR

ECC DDR ECC DDR

12



•

Optical Card

— Each Optical Card (up to two per switch) provides 16 10 Gb Ethernet

interfaces utilizing Broadcom BCM8704 controllers. Each group of four 10 Gb Ethernet

ports are directly hard-wired to a single Line Card. Optical Cards are hot-swappable,

but no redundancy is provided between cards since their ports are dedicated to

individual Line Cards.

Switch components and I/O

The front view of the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis is illustrated in Figure 5.

The following modules insert from the front of the chassis:

• A single system Controller Card

• Up to eight Line Cards

• Three hot-swap power supplies that can be inserted and removed without touching

the power cords that connect to connectors in the rear of the chassis

Figure 5. The system controller card, memory line cards, and hot-swap power supplies are loaded from the front of the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis

Figure 6 illustrates the rear view of the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis and the

following modules:

• Two hot-swap Optical Cards (non-redundant) insert from the rear of the chassis

(one shown), together providing support for 32 10 Gb Ethernet ports.

• Nine hot swap 120mm fans are accessible from the rear of the chassis.

• Three independent power plugs are provided on the rear of the chassis.

Hot-swap power

Up to eight System controller cardline cards(up to 1 terabyte)

supplies (N+1)

13



Figure 6. Rear view of Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis

The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch Controller Card and Line Cards (Figure 7) work

together to maximize throughput for video streams:

Figure 7. The Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch features a modular architecture designed for maximum throughput of video streams

The Sun Fire X4500 server

In contrast to traditional system and storage architectures, the Sun Fire X4500 server

defines a approach that consolidates the server, storage, host bus adapters, switching,

and multiple disk arrays onto a single high-density system. In the Sun Streaming

System, each Sun Fire X4500 server is specifically configured for use as a video storage

appliance. Featuring a 4U form factor, the server provides 24 TB of internal storage

Up to 32 10 Gb

Power plugs

9 hot-swap fans

Ethernet ports

Controller CardLine Card

14



through 48 hard disk drives in a 3.5-inch disk form factor (Figure 8). As used in the Sun

Streaming System, the Sun Fire X4500 server feeds video streams directly to one or

more Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches.

Figure 8. In the Sun Streaming System, the Sun Fire X4500 server is configured with 48 disk drives and supplies video streams directly to the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch over a 10 Gb Ethernet link

Sun Fire X4500 server features

The Sun Fire X4500 server is ideal for integration into the the Sun Streaming System

because of its ability to deliver dense, low-cost media storage along with balanced

system throughput. In the Sun Streaming System, the Sun Fire X4500 server stores

video data from either external decoders or FTP servers, and uploads video data to one

or more Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches via a 10 Gb Ethernet link. The Sun Fire

X4500 server provides a scalable and reliable high-density storage solution for the Sun

Streaming System, including:

• Minimal cost per gigabyte utilizing SATA II storage and software RAID 5

• 48 3.5-inch SATA-II disks in a 4U chassis, yielding 24 terabytes of video storage

• 24 terabytes translates to 4,700 hours of MPEG-2 video @ 4 Mbps including trick play

files (4/10/32x forward and reverse, total of seven speeds)

• High performance from an industry-standard x64 server based on two AMD Opteron

processors with 8 GB of memory

• Six individual PCI disk controllers

• 10 Gb Ethernet output directly to one or more Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches

• Redundant, hot-pluggable PSUs, fans, and I/O

• Built-in service processor and graphics card

48 high-performanceSATA disk drives

15



Sun Fire X4500 server architecture

The Sun Fire X4500 server features high-performance server engines with dual-socket,

dual-core AMD Opteron processors and high-density storage devices to meet the I/O

requirements of video storage. The system also includes an extensive set of enterprise

class reliability, availability, and serviceability features that reduce hidden service costs

by dramatically simplifying system maintenance.

The system features redundant hot-swappable disk drives, redundant, hot-swappable

fan modules, and redundant hot-pluggable AC power supplies to help enable increased

availability and simplified serviceability. A battery backup unit is also provided to

prevent data corruption from power failures. In addition, the Sun Fire X4500 server

features remote lights out server management, including remote keyboard, video,

mouse, and storage (RKVMS), remote boot, and remote software upgrades using the

integrated lights out management (ILOM) service processor. Figure 9 illustrates a high-

level block diagram of the Sun Fire X4500 server.

Figure 9. Sun Fire X4500 server functional block diagram

The Sun Fire X4500 server provides the following architectural features:

• Each AMD Opteron processor features an embedded single-channel DDR memory

controllers. These controllers provide maximum memory capacity and bandwidth

scaling, delivering up to 16 GB of capacity and 12.8 GB/second of aggregated

bandwidth with 2 CPUs and eight 2 GB DIMMS.

• The AMD Direct Connect Architecture directly connects a variety of system

components with HyperTransport links. Processors and AMD PCI-X tunnels are

connected with 1 GB/second HyperTransport links delivering 8 GB/second aggregate

ECC DDRSDRAM(4 slots)

HT 1 Ghz8 GB/sec

1 GBEthernet

Connectors

INTELFw82546GB NIC

INTELFw82546GB NIC

BIO

S

US

B2.0

Co

ntro

ller

SP

/VG

AC

on

troller

SerialPort

PCI-X133MHz

PCI-X133MHz

ECC DDRSDRAM(4 slots)

1 GB/sec

1GB/sec

1GHz8GB/sec

6.4GB/sec

6.4GB/sec

SATA HDDs

PCI-X133MHz

PCI-X133MHz

1GB/sec

PCI-X133MHz

Marvell88SX6081

8-portSATA Ctlr

Marvell88SX6081

8-portSATA Ctlr

Marvell88SX6081

8-portSATA Ctlr

Marvell88SX6081

8-portSATA Ctlr

Marvell88SX6081

8-portSATA Ctlr

Marvell88SX6081

8-portSATA Ctlr

PCI-XTunnel

8111I/OHub

PCI-XTunnel

PCI-XTunnel

PCI-XTunnel

PCI-XTunnel

16



bandwidth per link. Processors are connected to memory using the integrated DDR

controller delivering 6.4 GB/second.

• Two PCI-X slots deliver high-performance I/O with over 8.5 Gbps of I/O plug-in

bandwidth. (A 10 Gb Ethernet Controller is installed in one PCI-X slot).

• Two Intel 82546GB Dual Port Gb Ethernet controllers server four Gb Ethernet ports

• Six Marvell 88SX6081 SATA II storage controllers connect to 48 high-performance SATA

disk drives.

• Embedded management and legacy I/O support are also included, offering

maximum operational flexibility.

Sun Fire X4500 server I/O

The back panel of the Sun Fire X4500 server is illustrated in Figure 10. Features

accessible from the back of the system include:

• Redundant hot-swap power supplies

• 10 Gb Ethernet port (on PCI card, not shown)

• Graphics port

• Network and serial management ports to the ILOM system controller

• Four USB ports, two in front and two in the rear of the chassis

• Four auto-sensing 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet ports (RJ-45)

Figure 10. Rear view of the Sun Fire X4500 server

Storage architecture

The Sun Fire X4500 server employs Serial ATA II (SATA II) technology for its 48 internal

disk drives. SATA II technology is rapidly approaching other disk drive technologies in

the prime storage tier, offering features such as device hot-swap compliance and power

management compliance. In particular, unlike technologies such as Fiber Channel

Arbitrated Loop (FCAL) and shared SCSI, SATA II’s point-to-point architecture is ideal for

serving video streams since it reserves dedicated bandwidth to each attached device.

Redundant, hot-swap power supplies

2 USB ports

10 Gb Ethernet card

Graphics and ILOM card

4 10/100/1000 BaseT Ethernet pots

Serial management port

(not shown)

17



As discussed, each Sun Fire X4500 server features six SATA II storage controllers, each

utilizing a full PCI-X 133 MHz @1.06 GBps bus. The full complement of 48 hot-pluggable

3.5inch SATA hard disk drives provides a total capacity of 24 terabytes with

approximately 2 GB/second disk-to-memory throughput and 1 GB/second disk-to-

network throughput.

In the Sun Streaming System, Sun Fire X4500 servers boot remotely from a central

Supervisor node, reserving all 48 disk drives for storing video streams. Each Sun Fire

X4500 server is configured as 12 RAID 5 arrays (3 + 1). This redundancy configuration

dictates that 75 percent of the storage capacity is available for video data storage.

Sun Fire x64 servers

Open and standard Sun Streaming Software provides control elements of the Sun

Streaming System in a scalable, fault-tolerant, and distributed fashion. Sun Streaming

Software runs on standard Sun x64 servers, including the Sun Fire X4100 server

(Figure 11), as well as the Sun Fire X4500 servers and Sun Fire X4950 Streaming

Switches that make a Sun Streaming System configuration. Different software nodes

that comprise the software architecture are described in Chapter 3.

Figure 11. The Sun Fire X4100 server runs Sun Streaming Software components in addition to Sun Fire X4500 servers and Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches

Based on powerful AMD Opteron processors, these systems provide high performance,

large memory support, and a balanced design to help ensure scalability and

performance. The 1U Sun Fire X4100 and X4100 M2 servers support two AMD Opteron

processors, up to 32 GB of memory and 2 PCI-X slots. For more technical information on

the Sun Fire X4100 server, please visit

sun.com/x64

.

All components of the Sun Streaming System, including Sun Fire X4100 servers, Sun Fire

X4950 Streaming Switches and Sun Fire X4500 servers boot remotely from the

Supervisor node, a special-purpose node that is responsible for centralized

management and control of the Sun Streaming System.

Network switching and configuration

Even though it is composed of multiple individual systems, the Sun Streaming System

functions as an integral system. The nodes are interconnected using a Gigabit Ethernet

switch with two VLANs.

Sun Fire X4100 server

Sun Fire X4200 M2 server

18



Two separate VLANs are provided containing separate subnets:

• The

internal subnet

enables network remote booting of all Sun Streaming System

servers from the Supervisor node. The internal subnet also carries control and data

traffic between the various Sun Streaming Software nodes.

• The

external subnet

carries traffic between the Sun Streaming System and non-

streaming back-end servers such as the Content Server, Billing Server, etc. The

external subnet also carries control information consisting of real time streaming

protocol (RTSP) from the client set top boxes that are connected to the system.

The unidirectional streaming network that takes video streams from the Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switch to the carrier network and on to the set top box is entirely separate

from the internal and external Gb Ethernet networks (Figure 12).

Figure 12. The Sun Streaming System is configured with internal and external subnets configured as VLANs, and delivers unidirectional video to set-top boxes

External Network

(User Defined:

Content Servers

Billing Servers

Set Top Boxes, etc.)


Internal Network

19

Sun Streaming Software Architecture


Chapter 3


Beyond serving individual streams, service providers need to be able to scale and

expand their IP video services without artificial and arbitrary proprietary limitations. To

help ensure interoperability, scalability, and flexibility, the Sun Streaming System

employs an open systems approach to both software architecture and management.

This approach provides distinct advantages, including:

• A single point of control for the entire Sun Streaming System

• Integration with key third-party components

• Multi-dimensional scalability through replication of Sun Streaming Software

components

• Failover and recovery through software component redundancy

The sections that follow describe key Sun Streaming Software software components

along with management and failure recovery highlights.

Software components and architecture overview

Sun Streaming Software provides the key services that are required to import and

transmit video streams, as well as services to manage the system as a single entity.

These software nodes can be replicated to add fine-grained scalability for additional

capacity of individual functions, and to provide for failover in the case of software or

hardware failure. Figure 13 illustrates the principal software components along with

the open standard interfaces that they provide.

Figure 13. The Sun Streaming System software architecture is based on open-systems protocols

Supervisor node

The Supervisor node runs on a Sun Fire X4100 server (or two for redundancy) and

functions as the central point for monitoring and controlling the entire Sun Streaming

System, and also serves as a boot server for all of the other Sun Streaming Software

Import Pre-Processor

node

Supervisor

node

Session Controller

node

Content Controller

node

Media Store

node

Streaming Service

node

Import Pre-Processor

node

Supervisor

node

Session Controller

node

Content Controller

node

Media Store

node

Streaming Service

nodeUDP/IPTCP/IP UDP/IP

FTP or UDP

MPEG2, H.264

CORBA

XML/HTTP

RTSP

CORBA

CLI, SNMP,

HTTP


Internal Control Network

20



nodes. Disk boot images for all other systems reside and are managed on the

Supervisor node.

As the centralized operation and control system, the Supervisor node presents the

external management interface to the Sun Streaming System, interacting with user

interface agents such as the command line interface (CLI) and Web interfaces. Simple

Network Management Protocol (SNMP) support is also provided. The Supervisor node

coordinates the initialization of the system, monitors the state of other nodes, and

relays logging messages.

Session Controller nodes

One or more Session Controller nodes run on individual Sun Fire X4100 servers. Session

Controller nodes manage the establishment of sessions for streaming within the the

Sun Streaming System. The Session Controller communicates with the third-party

components such as the Session Resource Manager (SRM) and set top boxes (STBs)

using the real time streaming protocol (RTSP). The Session Controller also controls the

Streaming Service node (described below) when trick-play requests are received from

individual set-top boxes.

Content Controller nodes

Running on one or more Sun Fire X4100 servers, Content Controller nodes allow a third-

party asset management system to load and unload VoD or nPVR assets. Prior to

allowing the operation, the content controller verifies that sufficient bandwidth exists

on an Import Pre-Processor node to begin the import process, and that sufficient disk

space remains on a Sun Fire X4500 server (Media Store node) to store the content.

Import Pre-Processor nodes

One or more Import Pre-Processor nodes (on one or more Sun Fire X4100 servers)

process MPEG2 or H.264/AVC video streams before they are stored on a Sun Fire X4500

server (Media Store node). VoD content is imported from FTP servers while nPVR

content is imported from encoders. The Import Pre-Processor node generates trick-play

files and optimizes the structure of the video for disk I/O and packet transmittals. The

fast-forward and rewind speeds of the trick-play files are configurable, and there is no

limitation on the number of trick-play speeds that can be configured.

Media Store nodes

One Media Store node runs on each Sun Fire X4500 server in the Sun Streaming System.

This software interface allows access to the considerable storage resources and

throughput of the Sun Fire X4500 server. Up to 32 Sun Fire X4500 servers can be

deployed in a single Sun Streaming System configuration. Running directly on the Sun

21



Fire X4500 server, the Media Store node manages the scheduling of block reading and

writing to and from the RAID disks. Blocks are then transmitted to Streaming Service

nodes for streaming. Since Media Store nodes also boot remotely from the Supervisor

node over the internal network, no local disks are required for boot and local file

system support. As a result, the entire disk capacity of each Sun Fire X4500 server (24

terabytes) is available for storing video content.

StreamingService nodes

One Streaming Service node runs on each Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch. Multiple

Streaming Service nodes can be deployed in a given Sun Streaming System

configuration. As discussed, the Streaming Service nodes interact with Media Store

nodes to fetch the streaming content from storage. The Streaming Service node also

manages the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch video cache and schedules packet

stream transmission to prevent conflicts in the streaming engine. Streaming Service

nodes act upon receiving control commands from Session Controller nodes.

Sun Streaming System management

Just as the Sun Streaming System is designed to function as single entity, it is likewise

managed as a single carrier-grade system. This approach reduces complexity and saves

administrative expenses over multiple highly-distributed video server platforms.

Specifically, the Sun Streaming System is designed to be managed in a geographically

dispersed network from one or more network operation centers (NOCs). The

management capabilities of the system enable administrators to:

• Detect problems before downtime is experienced

• Find root cause problems rapidly when a device fails

• Manage the system with a minimum of staff

• Collect trending data for performance analysis

The Sun Streaming System offers three ways to manage the system:

• A full-featured command line interface (CLI) provides configuration management

capabilities consistent with other carrier-grade equipment.

• SNMP support is provided to help operators manage multiple Sun Streaming Systems

from a centralized NOC, and is primarily used for fault and performance

management.

• An intuitive and easy-to-learn Web interface is also provided (Figure 14).

22



Figure 14. The Sun Streaming System GUI provides remote administrative access from a Web-based interface

The command line interface (CLI) offers a convenient method for configuration

management, and it allows the entire system to be managed from a single interface.

Automation typically required in carrier environments is easily accomplished using the

robust CLI. This approach provides a number of advantages, including:

• No need to log into different applications or nodes

• No need to set configuration files on multiple machines

• No need to monitor multiple nodes

• The ability to detect and prevent syntax and semantic errors

• Control over resource utilization

• The ability to gracefully add and remove nodes

• Redundancy mechanisms

The CLI uses a hierarchical access model, where commands are used to move between

the levels with the system prompt identifying the current level. Each level of the

hierarchy allows access to different functionality.

• The

User access mode

is the top-level access mode in the hierarchy, allowing

execution of all show commands.

•

Enable mode

allows the administrator to access all show commands as well as

management configuration commands that do not affect the system configuration.

•

Configuration mode

provides access to all commands and command modes to

configure all aspects of the system.

23



Failure detection and recovery

The Sun Streaming System provides high availability through replication of individual

network components such as Sun Fire X4100 servers, Sun Fire X4500 servers, and the

Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch itself. In addition, individual Sun Streaming System

servers feature redundant components that provide for high availability and the

scheduling of downtime for necessary repairs. Figure 15 illustrates a redundant

configuration of both Sun Fire X4500 servers and Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches,

allowing quick recovery in the event of failure.

Figure 15. High availability Sun Streaming System configurations can be achieved by replicating networked components

State and fault management

The Sun Streaming Systems allows software services to be added or removed while a

system is operational. This flexibility is accomplished by changing the state of individual

nodes. All Sun Streaming System nodes have the basic capability to report their state

(enabled, disabled, or failed) and all nodes can indicate when a fault has been

detected. Operator messages can be directed to a log file, the command line interface

(CLI), or information can be communicated via SNMP through traps and other

thresholds.

Sun Fire X4500 server protection and redundancy

With RAID 5 support on each of 12 disk banks, the Sun Fire X4500 server is designed to

allow disks to “fail in place”, yielding high availability of video content. At the same

time, The highest level of protection results when content is replicated in at least one

RedundantSun Fire X4500

Servers

SunStreamingSoftware


Streaming Switches

Redundant10/1 GB Ethernet

Switches


Servers

Control Traffic

24



other Sun Fire X4500 server for failure protection. Redundant Sun Fire X4500 servers

protect against all failure cases in either disks, networks, or other individual system

components.

The Sun Fire X4500 server is designed to protect against disk failure. With individual

disk banks covered by RAID software, the Sun Fire X4500 server can handle multiple

individual disk failures (one per bank). Once a disk in given bank fails, that bank

continues to operate but is placed into “degraded” mode until the disk is replaced and

the RAID bank is reconstructed.

Two or more disk failures in a given RAID bank constitute failure for the Sun Fire X4500

server, and at that point the content on the MediaStore node is considered invalid.

Content must then be made available from another MediaStore node or data must be

retrieved from an archival system.

Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch redundancy

Replication of Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches is recommended to allow for high

availability and seamless failover. In a redundant configuration, both Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switches listen to updates in promiscuous mode, but an internal attribute

determines which switch is set to streaming mode, with the other set to standby mode.

Each StreamingService node honors all play requests, but the switch in standby mode

has its streaming output disabled.

The Supervisor node monitors the health of each StreamingService node. When the

Supervisor node determines that one Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch or

StreamingService node has failed, it changes the state of the backup StreamingService

node to Streaming mode and output commences. Because the video segments are

already in DRAM on the backup switch, the failover is transparent and no video streams

are interrupted.

Supervisor node redundancy

For high availability, the Supervisor node can also be replicated in a Sun Streaming

System configuration. In a system with two Supervisor nodes, one is considered the

primary node with the other named as backup. An election protocol ensures that there

is only one primary Supervisor node. Supervisor nodes implement monitoring objects to

detect when a node has failed and the backup node must become the primary node.

25 Sun Streaming Software Architecture Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Redundancy for other Sun Streaming Software nodes

Other Sun Streaming Software nodes can also be replicated, either for capacity

purposes, or for high availability.

• Each Import Pre-Processor node can import up to 100 Mbps of video. VoD import is

considered a non-critical event and a spare available server may be sufficient in case

of hardware failure. NPVR import is critical due to the time-critical nature of linear

video feeds. The nPVR content import model should be to duplicate content import

to survive node failure.

• The Content Controller node typically does not need to be rated for high load, and the

redundancy scheme should be in line with the VoD or nPVR schemes mentioned

above.

• The Session Controller is critical for the delivery of video so at least one redundant

node should be provided in case of a software or hardware failure. The spare node is

treated as a hot standby. Each Session Controller node can handle 2,500

simultaneous session requests per second.

26 The Sun Streaming System in Context Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Chapter 4

The Sun Streaming System in Context

By their nature, IPTV deployments can be large and complex, and integration can

ultimately be one of the most complex and time-consuming tasks for an organization

deploying an IPTV solution. Components from a wide variety of vendors must be made

to work together as a part of a unified system that presents a high quality of service to

the subscriber. Communications must take place not only between components of the

new systems, but with legacy systems such as billing.

The Sun Streaming System and its integral hardware and software components work in

the context of and end-to-end video delivery system. However, more than just providing

a video server component, Sun has committed significant resources to integrate with a

variety of third-party hardware and software providers. By supporting open and

standard interfaces and testing with key third-party component providers, the Sun

Streaming System takes much of the time and complexity out of deploying IPTV

services. The result is IPTV infrastructure that can be deployed more quickly, reducing

time to service for providers.

Integrated third-party components

Figure 16 illustrates how the Sun Streaming System fits within an end-to-end video

delivery system. This perspective is a representative architecture for illustration

purposes only. The Sun Video Streaming System can be deployed in other architectures

as well.

Figure 16. The Sun Streaming System in the context of an end-to-end video services infrastructure


Broadcast Content ManagerEPG Ingest

Asset Manager

CA System

Encoder Encryptor

Subscriber Management System

Entitlement Server

Offer Server

Session Resource Management

Navigation Server

Ad Placement ServerBilling System/CRM

Management Console (HTML)

Live TV

VoD Content

Video

STB Control

Control Interface

Legend

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB


The Sun Streaming System interfaces with a number of third-party components in an

end-to-end configuration, including:

• Broadcast Content Manager — The Broadcast Content Manager (BCM) collects,

formats, and distributes Electronic Program Guide (EPG) information for use in

delivering Sun Streaming System nPVR services.

• Navigation Server — The Navigation Server coupled with the Navigator client

running on the set top box manage the video experience and service to the

subscriber. The Navigation Server provides nPVR and VoD data to the Navigator client.

• Asset Management System — The Asset Manager is responsible for the full lifecycle

management of on-demand content and associated services. The Asset Manager

manages content flow, including import, distribution, and delivery. The Asset

Manager accepts VoD content packages and manages their provisioning into the Sun

Streaming System, distributing content and metadata as appropriate, and providing

verification capabilities for imported content.

• Subscriber and Session Systems — The Subscriber and Session Systems include the

Subscriber Management Server, the Entitlement and Offer Server, and the Session

Resource Manager (SRM). The Subscriber Management system enables provisioning,

verification, and reporting of customer data, driving the following tasks:

– Entitlement verification

– Offer up-sell and add-on services by verifying subscriber account information

– Accurate reporting of requested services

– Providing accurate billing for digital services via interfaces to the Billing Sys-

tems.

• Electronic Programming Guide — The Electronic Program Guide import capability

accepts broadcast schedule information from aggregators and providers, validating it

and allowing it to be edited if necessary. Unique identifiers can be assigned to

broadcast events for nPVR usage.

• Digital Rights Management (DRM) / Conditional Access System (CAS) — The

Conditional Access System (CAS) protects access to content by managing access to

the keys required to decrypt streamed content. Responsibilities include

authentication, key management, key distribution/enablement, database and

logging, and certificate authority management.

• Billing System/Customer Resource Management (CRM) — Billing System

interactions are transparent to the Sun Streaming System, taking place through the

Subscriber Management System or Entitlement Server.

• Ad Placement Server — The Ad Placement Server identifies ads suitable for inclusion

in unicast streaming sessions and coordinates with asset management to maintain

an up-to-date inventory of provisioned ads.

• Encoders — Encoders enable data/video encryption prior to video transport to the

Sun Streaming System system. Video transport is handled by using UDP or FTP. The

encrypter may have distinct implementations or operating modes for real-time


encryption (e.g. for broadcast feeds) and stored-content encryption (e.g. for VoD and

advertisement asset import).

• Set top boxes — Set top boxes from multiple vendors are supported by the Sun

Streaming System. Set top boxes communicate with the Sun Streaming System by

receiving streams over UDP/IP and using the real time streaming protocol (RSTP) over

TCP/IP for control.

For a complete and up-to-date list of the third-party components that work with the

Sun Streaming System systems, please see the website at

http://www.sun.com/streamingsystem.

Sun Streaming System interactions with third party components

As a part of understanding how the Sun Streaming System fits into video services

infrastructure, it is helpful to consider how the system interacts with other key software

and hardware components. The sections that follow detail key interactions. To

reiterate, this is one possible architectural representation. The Sun Streaming System

can work within other architectures as well.

Navigation Server: managing the user experience

Given the high level of expectations for quality of service from video services customers,

the user experience is one of the most important parts of any IPTV system. These

components can also be some of the most expensive. Figure 17 illustrates the

interaction of the Navigation Server with other key components.

Figure 17. Navigation Server interaction

Offering integration with a content Navigation Server is key to Sun’s strategy to evolve

content delivery to a complete unicast model. When properly implemented, the

Navigation server can help to remove the distinction between broadcast and on-

demand content. The Navigation Server interfaces to both kinds of content, making the

content available to the applications running on the set top box in a unified manner.

Asset

Manager

Broadcast

Content

Manager

Navigation

Server

Entitlement

Server

STB

VOD Asset

metadata

(Cablelabs 1.1)

Record,

Delete

Navigate

Browse

Search

Query

User Profiles,

Buy, Get Token,

Record, Delete

EPG Metadata

(TVA or

XML-TV)

Entitlement

Check


The set top box runs a multimedia home platform (MHP) software stack, enabling the

subscriber to perform a wide variety of actions through application software such as

that based on Java™ technology. The integration of the set top box and the Navigation

Server support personalizing the subscriber experience, acting as a gateway between

the set top box and the Entitlement Server, through which purchasing and

authorization are transacted.

The Navigation Server is also the component that brings together the data required to

implement networked personal video recording (nPVR) functionality. With this

capability, record and delete requests from subscribers are communicated to the

Broadcast Content Manager which then schedules record and delete actions into the

Sun Streaming System.

Broadcast Content Manager: control nPVR assets

In addition to managing storage and deletion of nPVR content, the Broadcast Content

Manager also is responsible for providing the electronic programming guide (EPG)

content to the Navigation Server for transmission to the subscriber.

The Broadcast Content Manager receives information from the EPG, describing what

programs are broadcast when, and uses that information to control recording. It also

receives information from the Navigation Server regarding programs that subscribers

have already recorded, and can schedule deletion of content that no longer needs to be

retained on the system. Figure 18 illustrates the integration of the Broadcast Content

Manager with EPG import, the Navigation Server, and the Sun Streaming System

Content Controller.

Figure 18. Broadcast Content Manager

Entitlement Server

The Entitlement Server acts as a gatekeeper, interfacing with the billing system to

make sure that only purchased and approved content is sent out to the set top box.

Subscriber data is obtained from the billing system, and subscriber purchasing data is

provided back to the billing system.

EPG

Ingest

Broadcast

Content

Manager

Navigation

Server

Content

Controller

Node

Asset/Event

Identifier

EPG Metadata

(TVA or XML-TV)

Schedule,

Delete

EPG Metadata

(TVA or XML-TV)

Record, Delete


The Entitlement Server participates in two main transactions. Content purchases are

initiated by the Navigation Server with the Entitlement server responding with a token

once the transaction completes successfully. The Entitlement Server is also involved in

playlist resolution, which happens after the purchase, when the subscriber issues a play

request for a given video stream (Figure 19).

Figure 19. Entitlement Server interaction

Streaming

Streaming is the ultimate result of a successful purchase and/or a successful request to

play a stream. The Session Controller node is ultimately the central component in

stream control, and it interacts with three components:

• The set top box is the originator of requests, and the ultimate consumer of video

• The Session Resource Manager (SRM) checks the token and returns the playlist

• Streaming Service nodes do the actual streaming out to the set top box

If a key is required for encrypted content, the set top box retrieves the key from the

Conditional Access System. Figure 20 illustrates the streaming interaction.

Figure 20. Streaming interaction between the Sun Streaming System and third-party components

BillingEntitlement

Server

SRM

Get Key

Subscriber Data,

Bill

Check Token,

Get Playlist

Resolve Playlist

Resolve Ads

Offer

Server

Ad Placement

Server

CANavigation

Server

Buy,

Get Token

SRM

Check Token, Get Playlist

UDP: Video

Streaming

Service

Node

Get Key

Session

Controller

Node

CA

Stream Playlist STB

RSTP

31 Deploying the Sun Streaming System for IPTV Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Chapter 5

Deploying the Sun Streaming System for IPTV

Unlike traditional video servers, the Sun Streaming System can take direct advantage of

existing dark fiber for unidirectional video delivery. By facilitating consolidated (rather

than broadly distributed) video distribution, the Sun Streaming System can simplify

infrastructure, and lower costs while enhancing reliability for video stream delivery. The

sections that follow describe the Sun Streaming System in the context of physical

network infrastructure, and also provide an example configuration.

Video distribution considerations

One of the key questions in deploying IPTV infrastructure is whether to provide

consolidated or unconsolidated video services, or indeed a hybrid implementation that

combines the two. These choices present a number of trade-offs.

• Unconsolidated video distribution

For small markets with minimal initial demand, unconsolidated video distribution

may seem attractive. This approach places video server systems close to the edge

of the network, lowers initial costs for small deployments, and minimizes traffic

over the backbone network while not depending on fiber availability between the

core and the edge of the network.

Unfortunately, this distribution scheme means that content is duplicated in a

greater number of sites. In addition, both capital and operational expenses

increase more rapidly as the number of subscribers increase. An unconsolidated

approach also requires more staff and more spare parts over the project lifetime,

and those resources are typically distributed over a larger geographic area.

• Consolidated video distribution

The availability of dark fiber in many networks makes consolidated video

distribution an attractive proposition for many service providers. With the Sun

Streaming System able to provide massive multi-dimensional scalability, a

consolidated approach is considerably more feasible.

A consolidated approach leverages the point-to-multipoint flow of video traffic

implicit in most network implementations and provides the lowest capital and

operational expenses over the lifetime of the project. With video head-end

functions managed centrally, a consolidated approach also requires the lowest

number of staff for ongoing operations and the lowest number of spare parts. A

consolidated and centralized approach can also provide higher reliability by

having fewer components that can fail. Having a smaller number of centralized

video servers also makes it easier to deploy new services such as nPVR. For

example, the even if 100 subscribers record the same show or movie, a centralized

Sun Streaming System would only need to store a single copy of the video.


Components of the Sun Streaming System may be appropriate in a range of

consolidated, unconsolidated, and hybrid configurations. Given the strengths and

scalability of the Sun Streaming System, this discussion will focus on consolidated

infrastructure.

The Sun Streaming System in a headend or video hub office

Figure 21 illustrates the Sun Streaming System components deployed in a headend

or Video Hub Office (VHO) as a part of a consolidated distribution network.

Figure 21. The Sun Streaming System components in a centralized headend context

The illustration is annotated as follows:

1. Multiple Sun x64 servers act as Sun Streaming Software nodes. Each server has a

gigabit Ethernet port for internal VLAN communication within the Sun Streaming

System, and a gigabit Ethernet port attached to the external network.

2. Multiple Sun Fire X4500 servers can be deployed as a part of the Sun Streaming

System. Content is imported from the Sun Fire X4100 servers. Video is then fed to a

Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch from an integrated 10 Gb Ethernet connection

between the Sun Fire X4500 server and the switch.

3. Each Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch has 32 10 Gb Ethernet ports, letting it trans-

mit up to 80,000 streams at 4 Mbps. Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switches include

integrated XFP modules capable of transmitting up to 40 km over fiber.

4. An optional passive optical multiplexer can be used to combine multiple wave-

lengths over a single fiber.

5. The Sun Streaming System leverages fiber infrastructure. Traffic can be transmit-

ted on dark fiber, or terminated on a CWDM or DWDM multiplexer.


6. In the central office, another passive optical multiplexer can be used to demulti-

plex wavelengths and terminate them on 10 Gb Ethernet switches.

7. Low cost 10 Gb Ethernet to 1 Gb Ethernet switches are available for terminating

video streams. These switches usually have QoS capabilities, and appropriate prior-

ities can be assigned to VoIP and video traffic.

8. Video traffic is transparent to edge routers. Routers use QoS functionality to give

priority to VoIP traffic.

9. A VoIP gateway connects to a distribution router and sends packetized voice traffic

to the legacy voice network. This activity is invisible to the Sun Streaming System.

10. A DSLAM or QAM is located either in the central office or in a remote location. Mul-

tiple 1 Gb Ethernet ports are trunked together for uplink to the switch.

Sun Streaming System design exampleFull scoping, design, and sizing of the Sun Streaming System is beyond the scope of this

document. However, it is helpful to work through an example to understand some

rough criteria for the Sun Streaming System design. This process involves:

• Understanding and forecasting relevant key objectives

• Translating these objectives into storage and streaming requirements

• Designing a system to meet those requirements

Collecting key information

Designing a Sun Streaming System configuration system involves collecting key data

and answering questions about the types and quantities of video data that are

anticipated. Key questions include:

• At what bit rate will standard definition (SD) and high definition (HD) video be

encoded?

• How many hours of SD and HD content needs to be stored for VoD?

• What is the total number of subscribers?

• How many of them are expected to concurrently watch VoD?

• How many linear TV channels will be imported for nPVR?

Case study: a hypothetical VoD and nPVR system

For the purposes of example, Table 1 includes three years of projected data for a video

system to serve both standard definition and high definition streams to both VoD and

nPVR customers.


Table 1. Requirements over three years for a hypothetical VoD and nPVR system

Table 2 provides a synthesis of these requirements

Table 2. Requirements synthesis for hypothetical system, years 1-3

Capacity analysis

The requirements expressed in the tables above provide sufficient information to build

a Sun Streaming System configuration. Only the first year will be considered in this

analysis but additional Sun Streaming System components can be easily added as

forecast, or as demand dictates. Organizations can choose to deploy redundant

Assumptions Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Standard definition bit rate 2 Mb/s 2 Mb/s 2 Mb/s

High definition bit rate 8 Mb/s 8 Mb/s 8 Mb/s

Hours of SD VoD content 2,000 4,000 6,000

Hours of HD VoD content 1,000 2,000 3,000

Total subscribers 10,000 20,000 30,000

Peak concurrent VoD viewers (%) 10% 10% 10%

Percent of SD set top boxes 50% 50% 50%

Percent of HD set top boxes 50% 50% 50%

Simultaneous VoD import (titles) 1 1 1

Linear TV channels (SD) 100 100 100

Linear TV channels (HD) 20 30 40

nPVR subscription rate 30% 35% 40%

Peak concurrent nPVR viewers (%) 50% 50% 50%

Mean nPVR storage used per subscriber 20 30 40

Simultaneous session and trick-pay requests (% subs per second)

10% 10% 10%

Requirements Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Peak concurrent VoD viewers 1,000 2,000 3,000

nPVR subscribers 3,000 7,000 12,000

Peak concurrent nPVR viewers 1,500 3,500 6,000

Peak VoD streaming requirement 5 Gbps 10 Gbps 15 Gbps

Peak nPVR streaming requirement 8 Gbps 18 Gbps 30 Gbps

VoD + nPVR streaming requirement 13 Gbps 28 Gbps 45 Gbps

VoD storage requirements 11 terabytes 22 terabytes 32 terabytes

nPVR storage requirements 120 terabytes 420 terabytes 960 terabytes

VoD + nPVR storage requirements 131 terabytes 442 terabytes 992 terabytes

Peak import capacity 368 Gbps 448 Gbps 528 Gbps

Storage overhead estimate (x multiplier) 2 2 2

Session setup/teardown/trick-play 250 per second 550 per second 900 per second


components for greater availability and failover. Both non-redundant and redundant

numbers are provided in the sections below.

• Storage requirements

In year 1, the combination of VoD plus nPVR storage is expected to require 131

terabytes. With each Sun Fire X4500 server supporting 24 terabytes, this

requirement translates to:

– Non-redundant: six Sun Fire X4500 servers

– Redundant: 12 Sun Fire X4500 servers

• Streaming capacity

The analysis fixed the streaming capacity for VoD plus nPVR streams at 13 Gbps.

Each line card has 40 Gbps of streaming capacity so a single line card should

suffice to serve the necessary capacity. However, the redundant storage

requirements described above require 12 10 Gb Ethernet connections for

connecting to Sun Fire X4500 servers. In addition, Line Cards are provided only in

increments of 1, 2, 4, or 8. Therefore the Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch

requirements are:

– Non-redundant: One Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis, four Line Cards,

one Optical Card, one Controller Card

– Redundant: Two Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis, eight Line Cards, two

Optical Cards, and one Controller Card

• Import capacity

The peak import capacity requirement for this example is 368 Gbps. Since each

ImportProcessor node can handle 100 Gbps, the requirements are:

– Non-redundant: Four Input Pre-Processor nodes

– Redundant: Eight Input Pre-Processor nodes

• Other Sun Streaming Software nodes

Other Sun Streaming Software nodes need only be provided in singular quantities

unless a dual-redundant configuration is desired for availability:

– Non-redundant: One Supervisor node, one Content Controller node, one Session

Controller node

– Redundant: Two Supervisor nodes, two Content Controller nodes, two Session

Controller nodes


Figure 22 graphically illustrates the results of the year-1 analysis. These Sun Streaming

System components could easily be accommodated in three 42U racks.

Figure 22. Logical block diagram of hypothetical VoD and nPVR configuration for year one of the analysis

A further projection of the the Sun Streaming System components required for the first

three years is provided in Table 3.

Table 3. Sun Streaming System components for a hypothetical 3-year VoD and nPVR deployment

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STBSTBSTB

STB

12 Sun Fire X4500Servers

SunStreamingSoftware

2 Sun Fire X4950Streaming Switches

2-16 10/1 GBEthernetSwitches

20-30 Gb/Fast EthernetAccess Switches

14 Sun Fire X4100Servers

Control Traffic

System Components Year 1 Year 2 Year 3

Sun Fire X4500 servers with 48 500 GB drives

12 38 84

Sun Fire X4950 Streaming Switch chassis with one Controller Card

2 4 6

Line Cards 8 20 96

Optical Cards 2 6 12

Supervisor nodes 2 4 6

Import Pre-Processor nodes 8 10 12

Content Controller nodes 2 2 2

Session Controller nodes 2 2 2


Configuring the Sun Streaming System with the Sun Customer Ready Program

Because each IPTV configuration is unique, the Sun Streaming System is sold as a

customizable combination of components. Customers can deploy different Sun

Streaming System configurations depending on their individual needs and expectations

for growth. For example, different numbers and combinations of Sun Fire X4950

Streaming Switches and Sun Fire X4500 servers can be configured to support varying

requirements for both storage and streaming capacity. Varying numbers of Sun Fire

X4100 servers can be deployed to answer expected demand.

Sun provides expert assistance for designing and configuring Sun Streaming System

configurations to suite the specific needs of the organization. To help enable rapid and

reliable delivery of video server infrastructure, backed up by Sun’s support

organization, the Sun Visualization System is available through the SunSM Customer

Ready Program. This program offers factory-integration of Sun and complementary

third-party hardware and software products. Sun Customer Ready Program provides

fully supported and Sun Streaming Systems, built in Sun factories and based on

individual customer specifications.

Helping to take the time and complexity out of deployment, all systems delivered by

the Sun Customer Ready Program are pre-installed, pre-tested, pre-configured, and

interoperability tested in Sun’s ISO 9002-certified factories. This approach lets

organizations avoid on-site assembly and integration problems and reap the rewards of

faster deployment. With the Sun Customer Ready Program, 90- to 95-percent reductions

in deployment times have been observed, coupled with up to 80-percent reductions in

early-life system issues.

38 Conclusion Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Chapter 6

Conclusion

While VoD and nPVR services hold considerable promise, getting infrastructure right

from the beginning is essential for success. Those who can move quickly to deliver

interactive video services stand to capitalize on this growing marketplace, reaping

increased revenue while attracting and retaining a more engaged and loyal customer

base. At the same time, too many organizations have already had to dismantle their

first-generation infrastructure based on traditional video server technology. Given the

risks and rewards, few organizations can afford IPTV infrastructure that doesn’t scale, is

cumbersome to deploy, or is costly to manage.

The Sun Streaming System presents a new approach that builds key functionality for

VoD and nPVR services, while readily integrating with key third party components and

existing infrastructure. Much more than the combination of its component parts, the

Sun Streaming System fundamentally changes the ways that video data is handled and

delivered, consolidating not just video servers, but network components as well for

simpler deployments and easier management. Innovative technology such as the Sun

Fire X4950 Streaming Switch and the Sun Fire X4500 server provide massive scalability

in terms of the number of streams that can be streamed and stored. Compact and

powerful Sun Fire X4100 servers coupled with Sun Streaming software provide an open

and standard software infrastructure that helps ensure that organizations aren’t

constrained by a single vendor’s products or services.

By their very nature, video services have unique requirements in terms of quality and

bandwidth. Video services subscribers too are sophisticated and demanding in terms of

their expectations, with a low tolerance for failure or interruption. Serving these needs

with a minimal cost per stream, the Sun Streaming System provides simplified and

centralized management, cost-effective scalability out of the box, and easier

deployments with end-to-end integration. Coupled with key partner middleware, the

result can be a seamless and highly personalized subscriber experience — driving

profitability for video operators even as it helps differentiate them from their

competition.

39 Conclusion Sun Microsystems, Inc.

Redefining IPTV with the Sun Streaming System On the Web sun.com/streamingsystem

Sun Microsystems, Inc. 4150 Network Circle, Santa Clara, CA 95054 USA Phone 1-650-960-1300 or 1-800-555-9SUN (9786) Web sun.com

© 2007 Sun Microsystems, Inc. All rights reserved. Sun, Sun Microsystems, the Sun logo, Java, and Sun Fire are trademarks or registered trademarks of Sun Microsystems, Inc. in the United States and other countries. AMD,

Opteron, and the Opteron logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. Information subject to change without notice. Printed in USA 4/07

THE SUN STREAMING SYSTEM

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