https://rethinkresearch.biz/articles/dazns-edge-underpinned-by-mainstreaming-peered-network/
23 June 2022
DAZN's edge underpinned by MainStreaming peered network
Italian private CDN venture MainStreaming has never officially announced its breakthrough deployment with DAZN that transformed the sports streaming service's fortunes midway through 2021, yet everyone seems to talk about the deal as if it were public knowledge.
In lieu of a legitimate press release, or getting a representative from DAZN or MainStreaming on the record (we tried, to no response from either side), Faultline has been spared many of the juicy details – for now – which is a shame given the significance of a situation that has even spurred on government-level intervention.
We know that DAZN has rolled out what people familiar with the deal are calling "private edge technology" from MainStreaming, specifically to support streaming delivery of Serie A soccer matches in Italy.
The private edge complements DAZN's existing edge infrastructure, which the streamer describes as a global CDN with proprietary cache for traffic management and video optimization techniques.
What we don't know is which of the five specific products within MainStreaming's intelligent Media Delivery Platform (iMDP) Platform – Media Manager, Smart Origin, AI Media Delivery, Meta View Analytics, and Ultra-Fast Encoding – that DAZN has opted for.
One assumes that DAZN has taken something quite holistic from the MainStreaming portfolio, given that the vendor claims to have "solved" DAZN's streaming woes.
While we don't have any solid consumer experience performance metrics to hand, it sounds like DAZN is impressed with MainStreaming's peered network approach, as one of the largest peered networks in the world with 4,300 interconnections with ISPs (ranked 6th in the world) – intertwined with proprietary technology that enables one-hop delivery. The network has added some 1,600 new connections in two years, to provide a picture of growth, and the business has developed its own Linux kernel, as well as network layers and front-end apps – to create what it calls a "real private network."
MainStreaming's network comprises Smart Synapses, which are strategically distributed around the world and directly linked with ISPs and telcos to distribute video at the highest possible QoE. It is these direct operator relationships that have earned MainStreaming its stripes.
These Smart Synapses include routing tables which are embedded in routers and network servers, listing information including routes to network destinations and data about the surrounding network topology. MainStreaming can actively rewrite the routing table in the event of a poor connection, using network monitoring tools, and therefore change the route of a video stream to a different connection directed to where the content is cached in the network.
A popular tool with ISPs is to allocate additional bandwidth for live streams in the home, thereby reducing available bandwidth for on-demand content, which is a grey area.
MainStreaming's iMDP makes real-time decisions based on a continuous flow of metrics used to calculate QoE. DAZN has also used the Conviva Insights product for additional layers of OTT video intelligence.
Importantly, DAZN's deployment of MainStreaming's private edge came a few months before TIM's rollout of multicast ABR technology from Broadpeak sometime in Q4 2021, in a strange non-contractual partnership with DAZN. One could therefore say that it was a combination of MainStreaming's private edge and Broadpeak's multicast ABR technologies that proved a salve for the streaming malfunctions plaguing Italian soccer fans.
The MainStreaming camp argue that its private edge has been the bigger success story here, as it supports the entirety of DAZN's Italian subscriber base, while Broadpeak's multicast ABR is only alleviating pressure on the core network for viewers that subscribe to DAZN via TIM's Android TV platform. These numbers aren't published publicly, but it can't be any higher than 20%.
As of Q4 2021, DAZN had invested €10 million ($11.3 million) in its DAZN Edge infrastructure, including €3 million ($3.4 million) for the 2021/22 season alone following some 40 installments of the infrastructure within ISP networks across the country.
We'd love to get DAZN, TIM, Broadpeak, and MainStreaming all in the same room and watch much mud-slinging ensue. That won't happen, but we can at least agree that the streaming situation in Italy has improved thanks to a multitude of technologies, with investments coming from the ISP side, the OTT side, as well as the CDN side. Collaboration.