QoE-based Load Balancing of OTT Video Content in SDN Networks

The proliferation of multimedia devices and video content availability is producing an increase in video content consumption. Video is now the most significant slice of all Internet traffic produced, and it is still growing. However, Over-The-Top (OTT) video is the one significantly increasing its strength, causing infrastructural and business challenges to Telecommunication Operators (Telcos), which provide traditional video services. Telcos must improve their network infrastructure to sustain future demand for OTT video content while improving user perceived Quality-of-Experience (QoE). A meaningful way to accomplish that is to distribute hardware appliances compatible with the Software-Defined Networking (SDN) paradigm throughout the network, improving flexibility and capacity while introducing new ways of content delivery.Towards this objective, this paper proposes an SDN load balancing approach to distribute OTT video requests through multiple servers. The load balancing decision is performed at the edge of the network influenced by the client's QoE. Comparing to a traditional load balancing scheme, the proposed method outperforms the non-SDN approaches in scenarios in which the server-side infrastructure starts to become stressed.