Delivering Cost-Effective Advanced Video Services Intel and Kasenna Combine to Enable Scalable Triple-Play Solutions

Transcription

1 Solutions White Paper Delivering Cost-Effective Advanced Video Services Intel and Kasenna Combine to Enable Scalable Triple-Play Solutions Table of Contents Business Challenge Tactical Challenges for Service Providers The Kasenna Solution Technologies Modular Communications Platforms Based on Intel Architecture AdvancedTCA Linux Operating System Intel Processor Technology Kasenna and Industry Video Standards Architectures Video Delivery Platform Video Services Platform Services Layer Client Layer Summary Acronyms Delivering advanced video services promises to be an ideal strategy for service providers who wish to increase average revenue per user (ARPU) and remain competitive. Video on Demand (VOD) and Personal Video Recorder (PVR) services have a strong appeal for customers when delivered as part of a triple play that also includes voice and data services. By combining a wide variety of technologies, including 64-bit Intel Xeon processors and open standards such as AdvancedTCA* and the Linux* operating system, Kasenna has built a cost-effective, comprehensive solution for service providers who wish to deploy advanced video services now, scale them easily as demand increases, and add new digital services as they enter the marketplace. Kasenna is an affiliate member of the Intel Communications Alliance: a community of communications and embedded developers and solution providers.

2 Business Challenge Telecommunications operators today face an especially challenging business environment. Traditional voice revenues have declined under competitive pressure from wireless and wireline providers while the continuing move to Voice over IP (VoIP) presents new service delivery opportunities. At the same time, cable operators are beginning to market a triple play of voice, data, and video services. The ability of service providers to offer a triple play of their own has become a strategic imperative. Many analysts view advanced video services as an important growth area for service providers. Figure 1 illustrates projected revenue in a variety of geographies while Figure 2 provides projected video subscriber growth worldwide. $18 Global IP TV Services Revenue $12 $6 $ Asia Europe Source: MRG North America ROW Figure 1. Projected Revenue for Video Services Subscribers (Millions) Worldwide Telco Video Subscribers AGR: 186% Year Source: In-Stat, 7/03 Figure 2. Projected Video Subscriber Growth 2

3 Video delivery over IP has emerged as a compelling way for service providers worldwide to deploy their video offerings as cost effectively and as quickly as possible. Technical advances in this area have increased the performance and density of key service delivery components and a shift to mainstream, volume technologies has helped drive down costs. TACTICAL CHALLENGES FOR SERVICE PROVIDERS Motivated to offer video services, service providers are now facing the tactical difficulties of development and deployment. For example, fragmented, non-standards-based offerings by new technology suppliers are causing vendor integration issues, which result in deployment delays. At the same time, traditional suppliers have continued to promote closed, proprietary approaches that have limited appeal. Proprietary approaches are expensive because they are typically produced in limited quantities, and they increase the risk of an operator becoming locked in to specific hardware and solutions, making incremental development and deployment difficult. The Kasenna solution, based on Intel technologies, eliminates fragmentation as well as the need for proprietary solutions in the development and deployment of advanced video service platforms. Kasennea s open system, modular platform approach addresses both issues by including servers based on Intel Architecture platforms and commercial off-the-shelf (COTS) technologies widely in use today. Modular communications platforms and development environments translate into reduced cost and lower risk for operators looking for a way to deploy video services as quickly as possible. The Kasenna Solution The Kasenna solution, based on Intel Architecture, delivers industry-leading streaming performance robust enough to enable solution providers to offer IPTV and other video services. A powerful web services-based application server powered by 64-bit Intel Xeon processors replaces traditional middleware offerings and brings a familiar development environment to video services. The Kasenna TotalTV solution simplifies deployment by providing a comprehensive advanced video services offering, TotalTV minimizes integration through a turnkey, yet customizable approach familiar to a wide developer community. The service provider benefits through Kasenna Media Servers Power SureWest Triple Play Kasenna Media Servers Power SureWest Triple Play SureWest is a premier provider of advanced communications products and services in the Sacramento area and the third-largest telecommunications provider in California. SureWest is the only provider in the Sacramento area to offer a bundled solution of voice, data, and video services delivered via an IP network over fiber-to-premise and copper phone lines. Although the company s services are also available separately, 82 percent of SureWest s Sacramento broadband customers have opted for bundles with an average revenue per subscriber of approximately $105. Kasenna Media Servers drive the company s new IP triple-play service introduced in the first quarter of Kasenna MediaBase XMP Deployed in e.biscom Triple Play e.biscom was the first company worldwide to implement telecom innovations such as a fully IP-based architecture, direct fibre connections to business and consumers, and high-quality digital broadcast television and video services over DSL. Its customer base has grown from 330,600 at the end of 2003 to nearly a half million at the end of e.biscom deployed Kasenna s MediaBase XMP as part of its triple play service. accelerated time-to-market for a broad variety of services, including: Broadcast IPTV a replacement for traditional analog and digital cable services that provides traditional television programming, which can include hundreds of local and premium channels Video on Demand (VOD) a powerful new service that allows subscribers to search movie libraries and select titles for instant playback without visiting a video rental store or ordering titles through the mail. This all-digital offering features advanced VCR-like functionality such as fast forward, pause, and rewind while eliminating late fees, the vagaries of the postal service, and long waits for popular titles. 3

4 Network-based Personal Video Recorder (npvr) a service that can eliminate home video recorder hardware by allowing subscribers to browse electronic program guides and select titles to record for instant VOD playback. Recordings are stored at the service provider s site to bypass customer space limitations, and operators can package a number of free titles as part of a service bundle. Gaming, , Internet Access, and Entertainment a digital two-way infrastructure for advanced video services enables many other services including interactive gaming, karaoke, , and high-speed Internet access. Technologies By incorporating standards-based modular communications building blocks from Intel, the Kasenna solution utilizes key technologies to deliver fast time-to-market and increased flexibility and scalability for service providers. MODULAR COMMUNICATIONS PLATFORMS BASED ON INTEL ARCHITECTURE To improve profitability, the telecommunications industry is now embracing standards-based solutions built on industry standard Modular Communications Platforms (MCP). Based on Intel processors, MCP solutions are in widespread use in standard architectures. MCP is the foundation for highly flexible service delivery platforms from leading vendors such as Kasenna, which help shorten time-to-revenue by allowing service providers to rapidly and flexibly implement a broad range of feature-rich software solutions. Embracing a number of different form factors, from rack mount servers through AdvancedTCA*, MCPs deliver choice and flexibility to telecommunication infrastructure design. AdvancedTCA The Advanced Telecom Computing Architecture (AdvancedTCA or ATCA*) is an industry-standard blade architecture optimized for high-performance, carrier-grade applications. Driven by over 100 companies within the PCI Industrial Computers Manufacturing Group (PICMG*), AdvancedTCA incorporates the latest trends in high-speed interconnect technologies and next-generation processors along with improved reliability, manageability, and serviceability. The result is a new blade (board) and chassis (shelf) form factor optimized for communications. The principle objective of AdvancedTCA has been to provide a standardized platform architecture for carrier-grade telecommunication applications with support for carrier-grade features such as NEBS, ETSI, and % availability. A recent report from RHK Inc. forecasts that the market for third-party commercial building blocks used in AdvancedTCA-compliant telecom systems would grow to $3.7 billion in 2007 (Source: The Outlook for AdvancedTCA Platform and Blades, RHK Special Report, October 2003). LINUX OPERATING SYSTEM Kassenna selected Linux as the underlying operating system for its solution because of the robust feature set it offers for the service provider environment. Linux provides a cost-effective solution while supporting all the security and management functionality required by a carrier-grade platform. Choosing an open, standards-based operating system such as Linux allows Kasenna to offer a secure and full-featured solution while delivering cost-effective platforms to service providers. INTEL PROCESSOR TECHNOLOGY As Intel has achieved continuing advances in platform and processor technology, Kasenna has been able to introduce products that dramatically increase density by utilizing system memory. For example, a dual Intel Xeon processor-based server with Intel Extended Memory 64 Technology (EM64T) can stream up to one thousand 3.25 Mb/s video streams from a single 1U (1.75 high) rack server. Delivering more streams from a smaller number of servers results in reduced capital costs and higher density deployments. In addition, innovative application-level Stream Clustering technologies reduce the operational costs for service providers by utilizing advanced content propagation, server monitoring, and load-balancing functionality. KASENNA AND INDUSTRY VIDEO STANDARDS Kasenna s utilization of industry standards through its use of MCPs and its support for Linux allows it to benefit from a large ecosystem of developers ready to provide products for video services. For example, video headends encode analog or digital 4

5 Acquire and Package Publish Host and Manage Distribute Cache Stream Play Program Acquisition and Storage (Origin Server) Multi-mode Distribution Fabric Program Delivery (Edge Servers) Figure 3. Workflow Elements Common to Video Applications Source: Kasenna video signals into standard MPEG-2 transport streams. Since MPEG-2 is a widely used standard for video delivery, Kasenna s support of MPEG-2 allows seamless interoperability with industry-leading headend providers. In addition, Kasenna s standards-based approach allows its deployed server systems to support advanced coders such as MPEG-4 part 10, which offers better compression for bandwidth-limited networks.other standards supported by Kasenna include: J2EE HTML and JavaScript Windows* Media 9 Gigabit Ethernet Architectures Kasenna s solution architecture consists of four elements: Video Delivery Platform (VDP), Video Services Platform (VSP), services layer, and client layer. VIDEO DELIVERY PLATFORM Kasenna s VDP provides multi-format video delivery, management, and distribution and an abstraction layer for video services. Figure 3 provides an illustration of the workflow elements common to video applications, and the VDP supports this workflow. Content Management provides functions that allow external systems, such as encoders, servers, and digital asset management systems, to install audio and video files into Kasenna s MediaBase server. Once the content is ingested in the system, the software allows metadata to be created (system-provided and user-defined). Content can be streamed when it is ingested (via live feeds ) or stored in file systems according to the Quality of Service (QoS) guarantees needed. Content Delivery or Streaming manages the delivery of streams to client devices (STBs, PCs, etc.). Delivery modes include on demand (unicast), scheduled multicast, real-time multicast (live), and simulated multicast. Streams may be delivered to customers over different types of networks (Ethernet, HFC, or wireless) using various protocols (IP, ATM, or ASI). Kasenna provides high-performance servers for streaming industry-standard formats (MPEG-1, MPEG-2, MPEG-4, and WM9). Kasenna offers very high streaming performance on open systems, driving Gigabit Ethernet delivery at over 90% of wire speed. Content Distribution Management provides mechanisms that transfer content and metadata between origin and edge servers. MediaBase supports a variety of distribution modes including on-demand push, scheduled push, and on-demand pull from edge servers. In addition to normal content transfers, MediaBase offers a unique distribution mode, patent-pending Kasenna VCD*, which features Prefix Caching to allow for the optimization of bandwidth and distribution costs associated with replicating and storing media on edge servers. Cluster Management builds up a cluster of servers using Kasenna s Stream Clustering technology with a buildingblock approach (such as a 400+ stream server building block). Stream Clustering uses mainstream switching technology (Gigabit Ethernet today, projected 10 Gigabit Ethenet in the future) to interconnect servers. The servers handle increased loads by using a dynamic cache replication approach and Predictive Hot-Spot Management, a technology encapsulated in Stream Clustering. The resultant system has no proprietary hardware components and no scaling bottlenecks and is very cost-efficient (as evidenced by the cost per stream achieved). Integration Framework handles system transactions through Kasenna s Content Life Cycle Management system. 5

6 Applications, Middleware, etc. Plugin Back-office Systems (A4) Plugin Plugin External Systems Integration APIs (Accounting, Access Control, Logging, Authentication, Encryption) Clustering and Load Balancing Services System Control APIs for Content Management, Distribution and Delivery (Java, CORBA, WSDL, HTTP, RTSP) Streaming Services Access Network Storage Management Network Management Acquisition Management Metadata Services Distribution Services Distribution Network Open Computing Platforms, Databases, Storage Source: Kasenna Figure 4. Conceptual View of Video Delivery Platform MediaBase provides an extensive set of application programming interfaces (APIs) for building client applications or integrating with other middleware that provide the functionality required for implementing the complete workflow. These MediaBase APIs use the web-services programming paradigm (SOAP, XML, Java, etc.) and are extremely powerful as well as easy to use. The modules in the VDP can be combined as needed to provide functionality specific to a customer s requirements. Figure 4 provides a conceptual view of the platform. Applications Infrastructure/ Legacy System Infrastructure/ Legacy System OSS/BSS Service Exposure Layer Service Execution Layer Network Abstraction Layer Web Services Connectors Video Services Delivery Platform External Systems Physical Network V-CDN Source: Kasenna Figure 5. Conceptual View of Video Services Platform 6

7 VIDEO SERVICES PLATFORM The VSP is designed to provide a mainstream-oriented architecture to abstract the delivery of services (such as Movies-on- Demand and Client-based or Network-based Personal Video Recording) from the infrastructure required to implement the services (such as billing, subscriber management, inventory management, and content ingest). See Figure 5 for a conceptual view of the architecture. Rapid service development and deployment is the focus of the VSP. Based on an architecture that uses web-services principles, the VSP includes a suite of development tools and applications. It is built with: Kasenna On-Demand Services Framework Specification (OSF) Kasenna vforge Video Services Delivery Platform SDK Web-services development and deployment environment Relational databases SERVICES LAYER The services layer hosts the application servers and is implemented using the web-services paradigm. It is designed to allow service providers and system integrators to easily develop and deploy application servers that encapsulate the business logic needed to fulfill their service requirements. Mainstream scalability principles, such as clustered databases and clustered application servers, are used and ensure smooth service scalability. CLIENT LAYER On the client side, Kasenna uses two standard technologies: HTML and Java. On the Java client, Kasenna utilizes the Espial Java Virtual Machine (JVM)*. When an environment such as the CableLabs Application Platform (OCAP)* has matured, Kasenna plans to use it as its standard environment. In the client layer as in other parts of its architecture, Kasenna aims to allow customers to combine components as needed to provide the functionality specific to their needs. Summary Kasenna s TotalTV solution is an integrated advanced video services offering that allows service providers to increase revenue, drive customer loyalty, and maximize return on investment. By providing an integrated architecture for live streaming video, VOD, and npvr, the Kasenna solution delivers a flexible, scalable modular approach to deploying on-demand services. Based on open standards-based software and hardware, Kasenna s advanced video services solution enables service providers to deploy uniquely differentiated services. Kasenna builds on the most robust technologies, such as servers with 64-bit Intel Xeon processors, which provide very cost-effective, high-performance platforms. The combination of Kasenna and Intel MCPs allows service providers to rapidly develop and deploy profitable advanced video services. To speed deployment, Kasenna has built a number of turnkey-solutions that implement popular services such as Movies-on-Demand. 7

8 Acronyms ARPU ASI ATM HFC J2EE JVM MCP MPEG NEBS npvr OCAP OSF QoS SDK SOAP STB VOD VoIP XML Average Revenue Per User Advanced Switching Interconnect Asynchronous Transfer Mode Hybrid Fiber Coax Java 2 Enterprise Edition Java Virtual Machine Modular Communications Platform Moving Picture Experts Group Network Equipment Building Standard Network-based Personal Video Recorder Open Cable Application Platform Open Software Foundation Quality of Service Software Development Kit Simple Object Access Protocol Set Top Box Video on Demand Voice over Internet Protocol extensible Markup Language About Kasenna Inc. Kasenna was established as an independent company in January 2000 by a group of engineers and industry experts with a track record in developing products and technologies focused on rich media delivery. With over 20 patents (pending and granted) and 7000 software licenses installed, Kasenna has a proven record of providing carrier-class software products. Adhering to a philosophy of developing open, standards-based software, Kasenna s products have benefited from the dramatic improvements in mainstream processors, I/O capacity, and operating systems based on Intel architectures. Learn More about this Innovative Solution For general information, proof points, and case studies about the products described in this white paper, visit and 8

9 This document and related materials and information are provided as is with no warranties, express or implied, including but not limited to any implied warranty of merchantability, fitness for a particular purpose, non-infringement of intellectual property rights, or any warranty otherwise arising out of any proposal, specification, or sample. Intel assumes no responsibility for any errors contained in this document and has no liabilities or obligations for any damages arising from or in connection with the use of this document. This white paper is for informational purposes only, and may contain typographical errors and technical inaccuracies. The content is provided as is, without express or implied warranties of any kind. INFORMATION IN THIS DOCUMENT IS PROVIDED IN CONNECTION WITH INTEL PRODUCTS. NO LICENSE, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, BY ESTOPPEL OR OTHERWISE, TO ANY INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS IS GRANTED BY THIS DOCUMENT. EXCEPT AS PROVIDED IN INTEL S TERMS AND CONDITIONS OF SALE FOR SUCH PRODUCTS, INTEL ASSUMES NO LIABILITY WHATSOEVER, AND INTEL DISCLAIMS ANY EXPRESS OR IMPLIED WARRANTY, RELATING TO SALE AND/OR USE OF INTEL PRODUCTS INCLUDING LIABILITY OR WARRANTIES RELATING TO FITNESS FOR A PARTICULAR PURPOSE, MERCHANTABILITY, OR INFRINGEMENT OF ANY PATENT, COPYRIGHT OR OTHER INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHT. Intel products are not intended for use in medical, life saving, life sustaining, critical control or safety systems, or in nuclear facility applications. Intel may make changes to specifications, product descriptions, and plans at any time, without notice. Information about Kasenna and related products have been provided by Kasenna Incorporated Intel, Intel Xeon, and the Intel logo are trademarks or registered trademarks of Intel Corporation or its subsidiaries in the United States and other countries. *Other names and brands may be claimed as the property of others. Copyright 2005 Intel Corporation. All rights reserved /05