RICHTER: Hybrid P2P-CDN Architecture for Low Latency Live Video Streaming

Abstract

Content Distribution Networks (CDN) and HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) are considered the principal video delivery technologies over the Internet. Despite the wide usage of these technologies, designing cost-effective, scalable, and flexible architectures that support low latency and high quality live video streaming is still a challenge. To address this issue, we leverage existing works that have combined the characteristics of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) networks and CDN-based systems and introduce a hybrid CDN-P2P live streaming architecture. When dealing with the technical complexity of managing hundreds or thousands of concurrent streams, such hybrid systems can provide low latency and high quality streams by enabling the delivery architecture to switch between the CDN and the P2P modes. However, modern networking paradigms such as Edge Computing, Network Function Virtualization (NFV), and distributed video transcoding have not been extensively employed to design hybrid P2P-CDN streaming systems. To bridge the aforementioned gaps, we introduce a hybRId P2P-CDN arcHiTecture for low LatEncy live video stReaming (RICHTER), discuss the details of its design, and finally give a few directions of the future work.