November 29, 2000

Cache flow

As more businesses, campuses, and individual houses become wired for high-speed Internet access, data-streaming apps are being rolled out left and right. Streaming media is still, for the most part, finding its way to businesses first. Entertainment applications aren't far behind, though. And the market is starting to see more products aimed at helping service providers shovel multimedia to the average Joe—albeit, an average Joe with a broadband Internet connection.

InfoLibria bills its MediaMall as a modular streaming appliance, aimed at storing and delivering high-quality audio/video Internet content to users. When installed as part of an InfoLibria content management and delivery system, MediaMall allows service providers to stream multimedia content, such as TV-quality video and CD-quality audio, from specialized devices sitting close to users—off the Internet backbone.

Service providers should find two aspects attractive: the ability to stream advertisements to users and the decreased cost associated with less bandwidth consumption over their networks. For consumers, value-added services such as pay-per-view access, distance learning, and faster content downloads make the offering compelling. The device supports Microsoft's Windows Media formats, RealNetworks' G2 Platform, and Apple's QuickTime.

The product enables both on-demand and live content delivery, including multicast and unicast signals, and supports usage-based billing. MediaMall works alongside Dynacache, an appliance that stores text and graphical Internet content for speedy delivery. Another integral part of the platform is the Content Commander application, which serves as a central content management and distribution tool, allowing service providers to pre-position content in multiple MediaMall appliances at the edge of the network. Content Commander works in conjunction with MediaMall and Dynacache to preposition and refresh content, as well as continuously authenticating and verifying content throughout the network.

Service providers use Content Commander to pre-position and manipulate content. MediaMall intercepts content requests and then serves the content from the appropriate media engine within the MediaMall appliance. MediaMall handles traffic loads of up to 1.2 Gbits/sec of concurrent streams per appliance, says InfoLibria. This allows service providers to simultaneously deliver 1200 separate 1-Mbit/sec streams, such as TV-quality video, to users. A single MediaMall appliance can store up to 1000 hours of 1-Mbit/sec streaming video. The product is scalable, as well, to enable greater output for future networks.

For live streaming, a satellite uplink/downlink replaces the Internet backbone, and content is encoded in real-time for streaming, then distributed via the satellite uplink to any number of receiving regional downlinks in the network POPs. MediaMall is located in the POP to serve the content to receivers, where content is then transmitted over the last mile via the end user's broadband connection.

—Leah Jiorle