Caching in on streaming multimedia

A design collaboration between RealNetworks, manufacturer of the RealPlayer audio and video players, and network infrastructure software maker Inktomi will produce something new for Internet service providers and Internet hosts: local caching for streaming multimedia.

The new product, which combines RealNetworks' RealSystem G2 software with the next generation of Inktomi's Traffic Server caching software, will undergo field testing later this year.

By distributing caches throughout the network, ISPs and Internet backbone carriers should alleviate some of the costs and bandwidth demands they incur by sending streaming media on demand across the Internet.

"Bandwidth demand is increasing by a factor of 10 each year, and that's hard to keep up with, no matter how many trenches you dig," said Paul Gauthier, a co-founder of Inktomi and its chief technology officer. "[More than] 70% of all media streamed on the Internet is pre-recorded, whether it's music from an Internet radio station or the trailer from the movie 'Titanic.' We have a product that will keep those files at the edge of the network until needed rather than drag them all the way from a server buried at its heart."

The ability to cache streaming media is more valuable to ISPs than caching an often-visited Web page because multimedia files are bulkier than standard Web pages. Web hosts also will benefit, Gauthier said, because they won't have to send multiple copies of the same content out to multiple servers.

But the real benefit should come at the end of the data stream, where end users will experience faster access and better quality sound and video transmission. By minimizing the distance a signal has to travel, the cache should minimize the packet loss, dropouts and degradation that a long-haul route can produce.

The open standards-based architecture and modular nature of the offering should make RealNetworks' server more scalable than hardware-based caching solutions, and thus more appealing to fast-growing ISPs, said RealNetworks Product Manager Kevin Epstein.