RE Bandwidth Requirements for wowza Server

[eagle_eye]

hi there

I am a newbie here.I recently downloaded wowza 2 for iphone /smart phone streaming.Using a laptop as a wowza server for testing.If 10 viewers access the server at the same time to watch a 230 p stream how much bandwidth is required on the server end ? Is it 230 x 10 ? or how does this calculation work ? And any guidelines to be followed in this regard.Thanks for your time and reply.

[Richard_Lanham]

Yes, it is pretty much that simple: stream bitrate * streams

When looking at the capacity of network interface we factor 20% for overhead. So count a 1gbs nic as 800mbs.

Richard

[Richard_Lanham]

“240 p standard video” is not useful info in this case. Bitrate is all that matters.

You need this much capacity:

stream bitrate * concurrent streams

Richard

[Randall_Auriemma]

It depends. 240p could be 432x240 for widescreen video (16:9) or 320x240 for standard video (4:3) aspect ratio. 240p uses around 256kbit/s to 512kbit/s. So for you, a rough calculation would be 384kbit/s * 10 = 3.8Mbit/s.

360p on the other hand can use around 768kbit/s to 1Mbit/s.

Here is a nice list of a whole bunch of bandwidth monitors for Linux: bandwidth-monitoring-tools-for-ubuntu-users

The “iftop” program is nice for seeing the bandwidth to/from individual IPs. It displays 3 values: the average bandwidth for the past 2seconds, 10s and 40s.

[Randall_Auriemma]

Yes 240kbps*200users = ~48Mbps. From your server’s prospective this would be your upload bandwidth, since you are sending to the clients.

240kbps⋅1024bits⋅200users⋅60seconds⋅60minutes⋅24hours⋅30days = 127,401,980,000,000bits/month = 127 terabits per month.

You can expect to pay about $300/month for a dedicated server with that much bandwidth. You may also consider using a CDN (Content Delivery Network), whose prices will be similar. But, with a CDN, you only need to push one stream from your server, so there’s less to worry about. Additionally, you only pay for what you use. So, if you use less than you anticipated, you save money, but if you use more, the CDN has the capability to deal with this.

If you’re expecting to serve 200 users at a time, I recommend you use a CDN or Amazon E2C which Wowza fully supports.

[eagle_eye]

Thanks for the reply. So how does it work if I have some 200 viewers hitting my server and I am streaming at 240 p standard video ( 4:3) ? Does it mean that I need 46 mbps upload internet bandwidth on my server ?

[eagle_eye]

240 kbps ( 200 kbps video and 40 kbps audio ).Also do we need to have upload or download internet bandwidth ? so according to my calculation I would need 46 mbps rite.