Performance Update

[WowzaDave]

We have done some additional testing with Wowza Pro 1.5.2-patch1 and wanted to share the results:

Hardware:

• CPU: Single Dual Core Xeon 5160, 4MB Cache, 3.00 GHz, 1333MHz FSB
• Memory: 2GB
• Disk IO (streaming disks): 2X 36GB, SAS, 15K RPM Hard Drives, RAID 0 (striping)
• Disk IO (OS disk): 1X 250GB, SATA, 7K RPM Hard Drive
• Network: Dual 1Gb controller

Software:

• OS: Fedora Core 6
• JRE: Sun Java6-Update6

Video On Demand Test 1 (700 connections, 400 files):

• Connections: 700
• Files: 400 (random selection of files)
• Video bitrate: 400kbs
• Audio bitrate: 96kbs
• Overall bitrate per file: ~512kbs (with overhead)
• Results: 368Mbs (no connections starved for data)
• Memory Usage: 361MB
• RTMP: CPU: 14.5%
• RTMPE: CPU: 22.6%

Video On Demand Test 2 (1800 connections, 1 file):

• Connections: 1800
• Files: 1
• Video bitrate: 400kbs
• Audio bitrate: 96kbs
• Overall bitrate per file: ~512kbs (with overhead)
• Results: 900Mbs (no connections starved for data)
• Memory Usage: 543MB
• RTMP: CPU: 35%

Live Streaming Test 1 (2000 connections, 512kbps On2 Flix Live stream):

• Connections: 2000
• Live Video: ~512kbps On2 Flix Live stream
• Results: 840Mbs (no connections starved for data)
• Memory Usage: 267MB
• RTMP: CPU: 21%

[redbeardster]

Hm, and what about 2 Gb of RAM, 2 3.4 GHz CPUs and approximately 3500 connections ? I saw neither in Wowza's log nor in system log any mention about system troubles (not enough network buffers, memory and so on).
Are there any recommendations but the published earlier (Server.xml and limits for the file descriptors ) ? OS CentOS 5.3. Thanks in advance.

[charlie]

I don't understand the comments or the questions. Please clarify.

Charlie

[egain123]

For the Live Streaming Test 1 with 2000 connections, how many input streams and how many output streams were used? Can one connection between a client PC and the Wowza server be used to transmit one input stream and one output stream simultaneously? Or would you need one 2 connections between the client PC and the Wowza server?

We are looking to use Wowza for the video streaming portion of a video chat application, where an agent and a customer are engaged in a one-to-one video chat session. We are looking to see how many such concurrent video chat sessions can be handled by the hardware that you mention above, assuming 512 kbps rate for each video stream.

[JohnATX]

Hi,

As we've previously discussed, yes, you will need two connections between the server and each end user where video is being both sent and received. With a 1-to-1 video chat, party A will need to send & receive (2 connections while party B is also sending and receiving (2 more connections) for a total of 4 connections per conversation.

I will reply to your max performance question via email.

If any other users would like share their maximum number of video chat users per server, I'd welcome the their input on this thread.

-John

[modrljin]

Hello,

I am also interested in this thematic.
We are planning to make and host a/v live chat application for some company who is expecting really lot of users and traffic, so it would be great if we could know what we can expect with i.e. server like this: 2 X Intel Xeon Quad core E5620 and 16 GB RAM. OK, I understand you can not know this exactly but I am wondering how much concurrent RTMP client connections are possible at all on one "better" server. As I read on this forum, most of users says that one such server can handle about 100 concurrent a/v chats (200 RTMP clients) when there is big enough bandwidth (i.e. 200 Mbit/s). Is this correct? Assuming that this is true and that all clients will not be in chat in the same time, my only question is how much concurrent RTMP clients can be connected? Is this number based on hardware or bandwidth limitations?

Thanks a lot!
modrljin

[rrlanham]

With chat applications there is not an easy formula, unless every chat session is a one-to-one chat. If 4 users are each publishing a stream and subscribing to the other three, that is 4 published streams (in) and 12 play streams (out). If you add one more, it is 5 and 20. You will have to do some estimating.

Richard

[modrljin]

Thanks Richard,

I meant at one-to-one chats only, but we can talk also about how many in/out streams? But also I am wondering about concurrent RTMP connections only, which are not publishing/playing any stream. So is it too optimistic for server I mentioned to handle 100 one-to-one chats (200 clients with one publish and one play) and 1-2 thousands concurrent clients without any streaming?

Thanks,
modrljin

[rrlanham]

Write to test@wowza.com and request the load test tool. It only does simple live or vod rtmp streaming but it will give you a good idea of your server and network capacity

Richard

[modrljin]

OK, I'll do it.
Since we are running wowza 2 now only as developer version on our test server with virtual machines I won't get results I am expecting with dedicated server as I wrote before, but ok, maybe it will give me some ideas.
My main problem is I have to plan and make an offer to one company for a/v chat and I don't want to take dedicated server for it before we make contract with them So if there is someone who already made similar test, I would appreciate if he can send me test results. Thank you!

modrljin