Xstream To Deliver World Cup Coverage Through IP Streaming

Xstream is to deliver a host of World Cup 2018 coverage through IP streaming via its MediaMaker platform.

All matches will be broadcast in up to full HD quality to millions of viewing devices.

"Interest in the World Cup 2018 is unprecedented and every OTT streaming service provider must be prepared to carry record-breaking traffic loads during the tournament," said Michael Rasmussen, Xstream's CEO. "Xstream's MediaMaker system is now capable of handling peaks of up to 30 times normal streaming traffic."

Ensuring successful streaming of World Cup games, Xstream optimised the MediaMaker platform based on its best-practice experience. The operational team spent the month of May performing draconian load and performance tests to discover and remove possible system bottlenecks.

After eliminating the first set of bottlenecks, the process was repeated to guarantee capacity for even higher streaming traffic.

Successful clearance of bottlenecks was followed by three hours of simulated streaming traffic load testing. It was then established that the MediaMaker system could sustain the anticipated maximum load requirements during the World Cup. The extensive load testing was enabled by use of the Amazon Web Services (AWS) platform.

Based on Xstream's experience, content caching technologies play a crucial role during events which generate manifold traffic compared to the normal. For this purpose, solutions such as AWS, Cloudfront and Varnish were applied.

During a global event such as the World Cup, ultra-fast scaling of capacity is required to keep costs at bay. Xstream uses Auto Scaling Groups (ASG) and Amazon Relational Database Service (RDS) load-balancing mechanisms to automatically ramp capacity up and down according to sudden variations in traffic demand at an optimal cost level.

If something goes wrong in streaming during the last minutes of the World Cup final, there is no time for a remedy but the damage to the service provider's brand is irreparable. Instead of reactive maintenance, Xstream provides its OTT operator customers a so called HYPERCARE service which consists of proactive system monitoring and carrying out corrective actions in advance of problems occurring to prevent system overload situations.

www.xstream.net