Verivue's video combo

A new equipment vendor start-up in the IP video space emerged from stealth mode in early March with a new approach to video content distribution that integrates switching and storage in a single box.

Verivue, helmed by former Juniper Networks executive Jim Dolce and backed by investors Comcast Interactive Capital and Arris (among others), is targeting cable operators, telco IPTV providers and content delivery networks (CDNs) alike with a system designed to quickly and dynamically move video content from centralized video libraries to the network edge and back based on user demand — all in the name of maximizing network efficiency and minimizing transport costs.

“Video delivery is not a storage problem anymore, it's a networking problem,” said Tom Rosenstein, vice president of product marketing for Verivue.

Verivue's first product, available in the second quarter, integrates switching and storage in a single box. On one side, the MDX 9200 is split among switching and storage functions. Each 14-rack-unit box has 10 slots for “delivery modules” — carrier Ethernet switch modules, each of which can support up to 20 Gb/s, for a total of 200 Gb/s both in and out (or, some would say, 400 Gb/s). On the other side is room for up to 24 terabytes' worth of 2 TB storage modules, with the company promising larger capacities later this year as new chips become available.

Where customers deploy the 9200 will depend on traffic levels and network topography, Rosenstein said. The vendor plans to introduce other products for various “tiers” of the network that will communicate with one another throughout the network.

“We'll know how much storage and bandwidth capability is at each tier [in the network],” he said. “We'll know the cost of the interconnects between the switches.”

Because the MDX is designed at the hardware level with dedicated media delivery fabrics and a separation of control planes and delivery functions, it opens up the bandwidth bottlenecks that typically occur in CDNs based on PC servers, in which rotating disk spindles pull content off giant racks of PC servers that limit bandwidth, Rosenstein said. “The delivery problem is tuned for a hardware-designed device to get the bandwidth through. CDN providers have looked at our box and realized they can replace 10 racks of PC servers with one MDX.”