InBroadcast - April 2022 - 80

80
www.inbroadcast.com | Vol: 12 - Issue 4 | April 2022
InForm
The Greening of Streaming cont'd...
efficient
but
- it
services more reliable,
and
also - by
is
better for the
environment. Indeed,
energy
consumption
with MainStreaming
technology is up to 50%
lower than standard
streaming operations.
Hybrid
a mix
CDNs
of
hardware and
utilise
on-prem
cloudbased
infrastructure
operated by major cloud
services
Carbon costs
providers.
can be
quantified in terms
associated
emissions
of
their energy consumption
and
using realtime
analytics, hardware
manufacturer data, and
footprint calculator tools.
" CDN carbon emissions
relation to traffic
carbon
Velocix CDN
carbon
rise in
demand, but
there is also a baseline cost, " says
Jim Brickmeier, Chief
Product &
Marketing Officer at Velocix.
" CDN deployments are often sized
for peak demand levels, for example
to support major live sporting events.
If CDN capacity is fixed, this can leave
servers idling and generating carbon
costs whenever traffic volumes are
lower than peak levels. These costs
can be readily calculated and used to
drive optimisations. "
Sustainability
has
become a
key priority for many of the firm's
clients, especially the largest pay TV
providers.
Clients expect their tech vendors
to embrace sustainability
and
move towards
Procurement
involve
sustainability
initiatives
processes
disclosure
metrics
directed
business operations.
at
greener solutions.
typically
of
and
core
key
greener
In response, Velocix is evolving all
its streaming applications towards
hybrid-cloud
architectures
flexible on-demand
This enables CDN capacity
that
feature carbon cost measurement
and
according to consumer demand,
explains Brickmeier.
" Resource utilisation scales-up
grow, and
rapidly
as
audiences
then spins down once the surge
is
over, thereby
minimising the
use of compute resources and the
associated carbon footprint. Using
analytics, operators can also better
understand their emissions and seek
out strategies to improve. "
Quantifying and
tackling the
environmental impact of streaming
is
complex.
There are multiple
visible and hidden contributors to
the global energy consumption in
video streaming networks, including
devices, CDN servers, head-ends,
and networking equipment.
" Networking equipment is agnostic
to the type of data it carries, "
says
Yann Begassat, Business
Development Manager at Broadpeak
(another Greening of
member). " The only
Streaming
fact we know
is that video is the dominant traffic.
Virtualization is also a challenge.
Multiple applications and network
functions will
increasingly
run on
Yann Begassat,
Broadpeak
same hardware infrastructures,
making it difficult to determine how
much energy the CDN is consuming. "
Many players have good intentions
and a real ambition, but they lack
guidance, best
and
technologies
practices, tools,
and
to react
Further efforts to reduce
carbon output
The video technology industry is
already responding to the need for
more sustainable streaming. Many
companies have embraced important
sustainability programmes like the
DPP's Committed to Sustainability
scheme and the
Science Based
Targets plan.
" This momentum is likely to grow as
OTT services and pay TV companies
increasingly
toward vendors that can demonstrate
prioritise investment
Jim Brickmeier,
Velocix
scaling.
to flex
keep energy
consumption under
control. " The most energy-efficient
technologies
distribution are broadcast
they
multicast,
as
don't
require
growing network infrastructure and
additional power consumption as
the number of users increases, " says
Begasset. " Broadcast and multicast
are used in legacy digital terrestrial
television and IPTV networks, but not
in internet and HTTP-based managed
networks
that
services.
" Broadpeak
deliver streaming
is a pioneer in
multicast, having introduced
nanoCDN, the industry's
first
Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming
system that
leverages
multicast
ABR. As the undisputed leader in the
field of mABR, Broadpeak is helping
service providers reduce their carbon
footprint. We estimate that about
70% to 80% energy consumption
savings
multicast
can be achieved
ABR network
popular live events. "
in
a
during
for live content
and
effective,
design
their commitment
the environment
to
and
carbon reduction, " says
Brickmeier.
For Meardi there needs
to be a strong push to
deploy
technologies
" that give at least equal
prominence to energy
consumption as
do to the delivery
bigger and better viewing
experiences.
He adds, " Any efficiency
intervention takes
and
time
effort: outside of
the C-suite, businesses
growing at 50% per year
may struggle to allocate
engineering time to
NetZero initiatives,
especially
when they
impact their core workflows. It's
important
to clearly
internal
teams with enough time
and resources to innovate and make
energy efficiency initiatives a real
priority.
Beaudouin rightly
notes
there
is no magic use case that alone
would solve the climate problem.
" Content consumption is a carbon
consumer, " he says. " Reducing
the environmental footprint of our
consumption in this area is one piece
of a larger puzzle: a small effort for
an individual; a giant one for planet
Earth. "
Corrado believes
that
improvement
an
in environmental
outcomes will be as dependent on
a collaborative mindset change as
it will be on individual technological
developments.
" Making progress as an industry
depends on recognising that we can
be competitors in a market without
making it a zero-sum game - sharing
values, innovations and techniques
which benefit us all - while holding
each other to account as a result. "
empower
they
of
http://www.inbroadcast.com https://www.velocix.com/cdn https://broadpeak.tv https://www.velocix.com
InBroadcast - April 2022

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