Neil Smith [MVP Digital M
Guest
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 Posted:
Wed Dec 21, 2005 9:30 pm Post subject:
Re: Stream live to multiple servers with 100mbps port/local |
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| Quote: | Im trying to put the information together about live webcasting. Im planning
to serve more than 1000 live viewers. I do believe that 100mbps port on a
single server with dual xeon manage up to 400 viewers at approx 225kbps wmv.
I was advised by a hosting company to use network load balancing to handle
more concurrent users however still using 100mbps port per server on 100mbps
local network capacity not 1000mbps.
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Load balancing would work fin, though you'd have to much about with
the logging somewhat to get all the viewer stats in one place.
| Quote: | Does it really work if Im using 100mbps LAN behind a dedicated server using
100mbps port then load balancing with more servers to increase more viewers?
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Yes, it should work fine - that's what a lot of people use AFAIK,
| Quote: | Will it still stream in same quality without lag the backbone at the hosting
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There should be no noticeable lag : In any case you'll always have
some buffering, a second or two, or more. Switching to another server
using load balancing happens at their end when making the request, and
that switch (the player being given the IP address of an 'available'
server) is almost instantaneous.
| Quote: | They said they can handle it but I need some experts to tell me that
I can use multiple windows 2003 servers with WMS for NLB behind 100mbps port
(nic) and on 100mbps LAN to their backbone instead getting on 1000gigabit
network using 1gig nic. They said its costly to configure into their gigabit
network than doing NLB on 100mbps network.
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I suppose really, they could be right. Not many hosting companies will
try to sell you something *less* costly if they can offer you a more
costly service ;-)
It's always possible with a given pricing structure, that 3 x 100mbps
links to give you 300mbps aggregate, is going to be cheaper than using
30% of a 1gpbs link. Depends how much that is on balance, compared to
3 or 4 Win2003 licenses and extra hardware.
Remember - not all those users will be on at a single time
(concurrently) - without checking your server logs or WMI load levels
it's hard to be sure what's right for you, but my guess is you might
be serving up only 500 of those 1000 viewers at a single point in
time, even for a live webcast.
You might be able to negotiate some sort of flexible hosting package
that allows for a steady state of 100mbs with bursting up to 400mbps
for up to 2 hours in any given day (say), but that's down to their
commercial people wanting to keep you as a customer. Some hosting
companies will simply have fixed packages, and their CSMs won't have
any flexibility to cut a deal of that sort.
It could also be possible to configure a multiple bitrate stream, and
have your server(s) configured to drop back the bitrate at its end if
it gets too loaded. So you might have a 225kbps steam, but also a
150kbps stream if the server(s) get too many hits to cope. Not tried
that myself, so don't take that as gospel.
| Quote: | Sorry for the long message but hope its clear to get the final words to move
forward into this. Feel free to check www.deafnation.com. We had been serving
WMV for a long time so now into live webcasting behind Microsoft WMS :)
Thanks.... Buzz me anytime at jed@deafnation.com or on this board.
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Well here's an interesting point : Of course the videos used ASL (?)
rather than audio, which is reasonable given the target audience.
From what I understand, ASL differs significantly from BSL (in a way
that french and english differ) - so any British or BSL viewers may
still "not get it". Have you considered adding English captioning to
the stored video (not really easy with live webcasts though) ?
Some examples if you stumble onto www.captionkit.com - though it needs
an update now, you get the idea.
Cheers - Neil |
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Jed Barish
Guest
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| Posted:
Thu Dec 22, 2005 5:30 pm Post subject:
Re: Stream live to multiple servers with 100mbps port/local |
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| Quote: | Yes, it should work fine - that's what a lot of people use AFAIK,
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AFAIK, what is it? I tried to google it and came up with this quote "As Far
As I Know" ?
| Quote: | Remember - not all those users will be on at a single time
(concurrently) - without checking your server logs or WMI load levels
it's hard to be sure what's right for you, but my guess is you might
be serving up only 500 of those 1000 viewers at a single point in
time, even for a live webcast.
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Im trying to find a 3rd party program to analyze the log better than digging
into text logfiles itself manually.
| Quote: | It could also be possible to configure a multiple bitrate stream, and
have your server(s) configured to drop back the bitrate at its end if
it gets too loaded. So you might have a 225kbps steam, but also a
150kbps stream if the server(s) get too many hits to cope. Not tried
that myself, so don't take that as gospel.
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Good idea on this part... I'll study the setup for it whenever I need it!
| Quote: | Well here's an interesting point : Of course the videos used ASL (?)
rather than audio, which is reasonable given the target audience.
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Actually, its no reason to add the audio but I have some footages show with
the audio. In the future, we are planning to add more audios and captions. I
like Flash video with cc function on the video itself instantly available for
Mac or PC instead Mac OS X with WMP 9 which it needs to be upgrade to make
wmp a best solution everywhere.
| Quote: | From what I understand, ASL differs significantly from BSL (in a way
that french and english differ) - so any British or BSL viewers may
still "not get it". Have you considered adding English captioning to
the stored video (not really easy with live webcasts though) ?
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It takes time to translate and type everyone's ASL into english text :) With
a larger budget, we can hire more people to type up more videos with caption.
We are considering the caption during live show via flash window so its like
a chat operator handle the window itself to type up about the event like a
reporter.
I ll try to work it out with 2nd server shortly to test NLB. If Im doing NLB
then is it wise to have triangle concept... one server handle the push/pull
then stream to another server with concurrent users then load to another 3rd
server if need more users so that 1st server of distribution will be so
reliable to distribute without crash while handling concurrent users and push
others to 2nd server so 3 servers to help the load of the server's hardware
to continue full live webcasting event without a glitch beside the buffer :)
Jed
| Quote: | Some examples if you stumble onto www.captionkit.com - though it needs
an update now, you get the idea.
Cheers - Neil
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