Solution Spoo tlight€¦ · The M-ABR Edge Device with EMC is responsible for 1) joining the IP...

Solution Sp tlightoSolution Sp tlightoSolution Sp tlightoSolution Sp tlightoARRIS MULTICAST-ASSISTEDABR SOLUTION SUMMARY

Jeffrey TyreProduct Management Director, ARRIS

Copyright 2016, ARRIS Enterprises, LLC., All rights reservedWEB BLOGwww.arris.com www.arriseverywhere.com1

ARRIS multicast-assisted ABR solution summaryAdaptive Bit Rate (ABR) protocols have become the mainstay of multi-screen devices like tablets, smart phones, gaming devices and Smart TVs for accessing Over-The-Top (OTT) video content. Because of their explosive popularity, it is highly desirable for an operator to provide existing services to these IP Video, multi-screen devices. The ABR protocols have been optimized to deliver a wide range of bit rates for varying screen sizes from thumbnails to 4K ultra-HD, operating over IP Network connections with fluctuating bandwidth and service levels.ultra-HD, operating over IP Network connections with fluctuating bandwidth and service levels.

Adaptive Bit Rate streaming is already used today by Pay TV Operators to deliver linear content Adaptive Bit Rate streaming is already used today by Pay TV Operators to deliver linear content over IP to the home to second-screen subscriber devices such as PCs, laptops, tablets and mobile phones. ABR streaming is now making its way to the primary TV screen in the home in the form of next generation IP STBs. The intent of the Multicast-assisted Adaptive Bit Rate (M-ABR) solution is to enable all Pay TV subscriber devices in the home to be ABR-based using unicast HTTP, but leverage the bandwidth efficiencies of IP multicast for linear channel delivery across the operator network.

The following diagram illustrates the major components of a Multicast-assisted ABR solution.The following diagram illustrates the major components of a Multicast-assisted ABR solution.

In this Pay TV operator solution, an ABR transcoding-packaging system publishes ABR content into the CDN. The Multicast Server pulls this content from the CDN as a normal ABR client, and


sends the content as a multicast transport over an IP routed network to a M-ABR Edge Device with a built in Embedded Multicast Client (EMC). The M-ABR Edge Device is often a home gate-way representing the operator network termination point to the customer premise equipment (CPE).

The M-ABR Edge Device with EMC is responsible for 1) joining the IP multicast (using IGMP) when a subscriber’s ABR client device makes an request for channel available as a multicast service, 2) receives the video segments via multicast, 3) converts these from multicast to an unicast ABR format (e.g. HLS, DASH ISO) and 4) stores the content as ABR segments in the Edge Device’s local cache for the ABR client to access content. In doing this, the Edge Device acts as an HTTP proxy cache for the ABR clients in the home. If the Edge Device sees a request for content currently present in its cache, the Edge Device directly responds to the client request with the requested ABR fragment. If the content being requested is not in the cache, the request is passed through the network back to the CDN to obtain the content via unicast HTTP.

Client devices are pure ABR clients, whether they are IP STBs or Mobile clients. The fact that Client devices are pure ABR clients, whether they are IP STBs or Mobile clients. The fact that some of the ABR content is being carried over multicast is completely transparent to them. End ABR clients could themselves support the M-ABR processing, however, ARRIS expects that this functionality to be most prevalent in home gateways to minimize CPE device costs.

The M-ABR Controller and Configuration Manager respectively manage the setup and configuThe M-ABR Controller and Configuration Manager respectively manage the setup and configu-ration of the M-ABR Servers and Edge Devices. The M-ABR Controller is responsible for defin-ing the mapping of specific ABR delivered streams for the M-ABR Servers to multicast delivery of the ABR content and provide mappings to edge devices so they know what services are available and how to connect to them. Management of this mapping can be either operator scheduled or dynamic based on tracking ABR client channel viewership trends across service groups, as well as at regional and national levels.

ARRIS multicast-assisted ABR (M-ABR) productsARRIS multicast-assisted ABR (M-ABR) products

M-ABR Controller

The M-ABR Controller supports real-time management of the multicast channel lineup, providing key coordination between Edge Devices ABR stream viewership requests and M-ABR Server delivery resources across the overall M-ABR system. The M-ABR Controller supports both scheduled and dynamic multicast channel mapping, the latter based directly on trackingreal-time channel viewership data trends. This determines what channels are multicast by


instructing M-ABR Servers to setup and subsequently tear down multicast streams as ABR stream viewership changes or based on operator scheduled multicast events. Having a single management platform for both scheduled and dynamic viewership allows optimization of network, M-ABR Server and edge device cache resources.

M-ABR Controller functional summary:

• Manages ABR stream content multicast by M-ABR Servers and joined by M-ABR Edge Devices

• Computes the popular list of linear channels based on M-ABR Edge Device telemetry data • Controls and distributes the mapping of unicast ABR stream content to multicast groups • Maintains and updates multicast channel maps that are used by the M-ABR Servers and edge devices

• Instructs M-ABR Servers to setup and subsequently tear down multicast streams • Manages multicast channel capacity loads across M-ABR servers • Monitors and manages M-ABR server availability • Coordinates the prioritization of the multicast channel lists based on Scheduled Live Events (custom time), Scheduled Channel Listings (24x7) and Subscriber Viewership Data

• Collects key telemetry data from M-ABR Edge Devices hosting the Multicast Delivery Client (EMC)

• Tracks ABR stream viewership by channel, device type, regional zones and service groups • Administrates M-ABR network policies, disseminating policy information to M-ABR Servers and EMC

• Based on highly scalable, web-service and hierarchical cluster technologies

M-ABR Server

The M-ABR Server acquires ABR video stream content via HTTP unicast from a packager or CDN and transmits it via multicast to the M-ABR Edge Devices. The M-ABR Server acts based on configuration information and unicast to multicast mapping information provided to it bythe M-ABR Controller. The M-ABR Server uses the NORM (NACK-Oriented Reliable Multicast) transport protocol to propagate multicast streams over the operator network.


M-ABR Server functional summary:

• Accepts commands from the M-ABR Controller to Start / Stop multicast sessions • Periodically requests a list of existing multicast channels from the M-ABR Controller • Working with any standard CDN and ABR origin server, acts as a client for ABR stream content • Matches correct variant ABR playlist to the bitrate specified in the start multicast request • Polls the variant playlists for new fragments and fetches fragments from an edge cache via unicast

• Sends the fragment to the specified multicast group using the NORM transport protocol • Provides status and telemetry data to the M-ABR Controller • Multicasts both DASH and HLS ABR streams (can be extended to other ABR formats)

M-ABR Configuration Manager

The M-ABR Configuration Manager is responsible for managing the Edge Device and Multicast The M-ABR Configuration Manager is responsible for managing the Edge Device and Multicast Delivery Client (EMC) configuration settings. Information includes Device ID, Zone ID, M-ABR cache size, memory resource limits, Enable/Disable EMC rules, TR-69 compliance, HTTP port, DNS resolver, IP Tables, TOS/DSCP marking, path to SSL certification file and other network parameters.

The M-ABR Configuration Manager is also responsible for routing the Edge Device to a M-ABR The M-ABR Configuration Manager is also responsible for routing the Edge Device to a M-ABR Server. The M-ABR Configuration Manager includes an API which supports importing Edge Device configuration information from an operator’s OSS.

M-ABR Analytics Manager

The M-ABR Analytics Manager provides a real-time data logging and repository framework that reads network and viewership data from M-ABR Edge Devices. A reporting interface based on an REST API provides real-time operational dashboards, such as:

• Channel Utilization • Caching Information • Multicast Errors • Cache Latency • Network Latency


ARRIS mABR Analytics - Channel Utilization Dashboard

The M-ABR Analytics Manager interfaces to a customer OSS / BSS platform, and can be used to collect EMC client viewership and based on channel utilization data, effectively determining which channels are more popular and when, along with all channel change data.

M-ABR Edge Device / Embedded Multicast Client (EMC)The Embedded Multicast Client (EMC) is an application running in the M-ABR Edge Device that The Embedded Multicast Client (EMC) is an application running in the M-ABR Edge Device that manages all aspects of the NORM multicast inputs received from M-ABR Server and their con-version to HTTP unicast ABR streams delivered over a local network (e.g. subscriber home net-work) to ABR clients for playout. EMC is being incorporated into the Reference Design Kit for Broadband services (RDK-B) software.

• EMC registers with the M-ABR Configuration Manager using the a URL provided by command line other via TR-069, WebPA, or other command messaging protocol

• EMC communicates with the M-ABR Configuration Manager which provides configuration information to EMC. This including the M-ABR Controller URL to send heartbeats and receive a multicast channel map and other configuration parameters required for operation.


• EMC receives ABR video segment requests from ABR clients which have been proxied to it. Once one is received it then:

1. Checks if the ABR client URL request matches a stream that is currently being multi cast and in the Edge Device’s local cache. If not, requests the video segment via HTTP unicast and returns it to ABR client.

2. If the video segment requested by the ABR client is present in the local cache, EMC returns it to the ABR client immediately.

3. If the NORM multicast stream has not been joined, EMC joins the multicast stream to receive video segments via multicast, converts these from NORM to an ABR format (e.g. HLS, DASH ISO) and stores these as ABR segments in the Edge Device’s local cache.

4. All subsequent ABR segment requests are delivered from the Edge Device cache based on step #1 above.

• EMC periodically check for updates to the configuration and multicast stream channel map. • EMC periodically send statistics to the M-ABR Analytics Manager about the ABR stream sessions, including what ABR streams are requested, the cache hit/miss ratio for multicast streams, multicast data reliability, etc. This data will be the backbone of the subscriber viewership analytics driving which streams should be available via multicast.

Conclusion ARRIS’s advanced research has led to the development of a new M-ABR content delivery solution that provides a high-quality consumer experience and completely changes the economics of delivering IP video services. M-ABR leverages the bandwidth efficiencies of IP economics of delivering IP video services. M-ABR leverages the bandwidth efficiencies of IP multicast for linear channel delivery and allows service providers to optimize the network. As service providers evolve from delivering second screen IP video to ALL screen IP video, technology advances such as M-ABR will enable them to capitalize on the opportunity to offer quality managed linear TV services. M-ABR will become a key element in the overall migration to a unified IP video solution that delivers content to the primary TV, as well as all of the other screens in the home.

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