Cost-Saving Streaming: Unlocking the Potential of Alternative Edge Node Resources

Yu Tian, Zhenyu Li, Matthew Yang Liu, Jian Mao, Gareth Tyson, Gaogang Xie

Abstract: As the demand for online video content drives up bandwidth costs for content providers (CPs), there have been efforts to integrate cost-effective techniques to mitigate their bandwidth expenditure (e.g. using set-top boxes to share content). However, the use of such resources requires considerable effort to balance cost vs. user-perceived quality of service. This paper serves as a first step to quantify this trade-off. We collect and analyze data from a major CP that serves millions of users per day using both traditional CDN resources and alternative cheaper resources. Our analysis reveals that introducing cheaper alternative resources does not always yield anticipated cost savings and may lead to a reduction in quality of experience for users. We provide insights into the reasons behind these issues and propose strategies for better utilization of alternative network resources. We work with a major CP to deploy our proposals, and offer insights on how to better leverage different kinds of bandwidth resources for improved cost-efficiency and streaming delivery.