Streaming Video Alliance kicks off with Open Caching trials

Alon Maor

Industry organisation the Streaming Video Alliance has kicked off streaming trials based on its Open Caching specification. The ‘request routing’ specification for open caching is designed to enable the use of in-network computing and storage resources to move the most popular content to distributed open cache servers deployed at the edge of networks to improve Quality of Service.

The spec covers requirements for open cache request routing and the interfaces through which request routing may be performed from an upstream CDN or content provider to an open cache system.

Trial participants include Charter, Limelight Networks, Major League Baseball Advanced Media, Qwilt, Verizon, Viacom, ViaSat and Yahoo.

The companies, which are mostly members of the Alliance’s Open Caching Working Group, will conduct a range of use cases during the trials, including live and on-demand streaming video traffic over HTTP and HTTPS, according to the organisation.

The Alliance voted to approve the open caching specification – the first ratified technical specification to be approved and published by it – at its November meeting held at Level 3 Communications headquarters in Broomfield, Colorado. The Streaming Video Alliance was created in 2014 and currently counts about 45 members, including technology providers, CDNs, ISPs and service providers.

“It is gratifying to see the rigor and focus Alliance members have invested over the last 2 years come to fruition. The adoption of Open Caching by the ISPs, CDNs and content providers will enable the entire ecosystem to benefit from Open Caching. The OC architecture enables new applications, and superior QoE by taking advantage of the principle that ‘closer is better’ when it comes to delivering content,” said Alon Maor, CEO of Qwilt and chair of the Open Caching Working Group.

“The Streaming Video Alliance serves a critically important role towards aligning the entire ecosystem around Open Caching. The trials announced today will allow ISPs to move forward confidently to test and implement this new architecture to support improved content delivery,” said Mike Altland, director of network planning at Verizon.