Streaming Multicast Video over Software-Defined Networks

TL;DR

This paper proposes an SDN-based framework for efficient multicast video streaming that significantly improves video quality for large audiences compared to traditional application-layer multicast methods.

Contribution

It introduces a novel SDN-controlled multicast system supporting multiple sources and MDC video, enhancing quality and control over existing approaches.

Findings

Increases PSNR of streamed video under medium to heavy loads

Reduces delays and network load compared to application-layer multicast

Enables dynamic control of sources and content distribution

Abstract

Many of the video streaming applications in today's Internet involve the distribution of content from a CDN source to a large population of interested clients. However, widespread support of IP multicast is unavailable due to technical and economical reasons, leaving the floor to application layer multicast which introduces excessive delays for the clients and increased traffic load for the network. This paper is concerned with the introduction of an SDN-based framework that allows the network controller to not only deploy IP multicast between a source and subscribers, but also control, via a simple northbound interface, the distributed set of sources where multiple- description coded (MDC) video content is available. We observe that for medium to heavy network loads, relative to the state-of-the-art, the SDN-based streaming multicast video framework increases the PSNR of the received video significantly, from a level that is practically unwatchable to one that has good quality.