System and method for evaluating a capacity of a streaming media server for supporting a workload

A method comprising:

• receiving, into a capacity planning tool executed in a computer system, configuration information for at least one streaming media server;
• receiving, into said capacity planning tool, workload information for a workload of client accesses of streaming media files from a server;
• said capacity planning tool evaluating a capacity of the at least one streaming media server for supporting the workload;
• wherein said evaluating comprises computing a service demand for said at least one streaming media server supporting said workload;
• and
• wherein said computing said service demand comprises computing:
• Demand
• =
• ∑
• i
• =
• 1
• K
• W
• ⁢
• N
• X
• W
• i
• memory
• ×
• cost
• X
• W
• i
• memory
• +
• ∑
• i
• =
• 1
• K
• W
• ⁢
• N
• X
• W
• i
• disk
• ×
• cost
• X
• W
• i
• disk
• ,
• wherein the workload W comprises XW=X1, . . . , Xkw set of different encoded bit rates of files served in the workload,
• N
• X
• W
• i
• memory
• is a number of streams in the workload having a memory access to a subset of files encoded at XWi Kb/s,
• cos
• ⁢
• ⁢
• t
• X
• W
• i
• memory
• is a cost of consumed resources for a stream having a memory access to a file encoded at XWi Kb/s,
• N
• X
• W
• i
• memory
• is a number of streams in the workload having a disk access to a subset of files encoded at XWi Kb/s, and
• cost
• X
• W
• i
• memory
• is a cost of consumed resources for a stream having a disk access to a file encoded at XWi Kb/s.

A system comprising:

• means for receiving configuration information for a plurality of different system configurations, wherein the configuration information comprises, for each of the plurality of different system configurations, a corresponding single file benchmark and unique file benchmark, wherein said single file benchmark measures capacity of the corresponding system configuration for serving a population of clients that all access a same file, wherein said unique file benchmark measures capacity of the corresponding system configuration for serving a population of clients that all access different files;
• means for receiving workload information for a workload of client accesses of streaming media files from a server;
• and
• means for evaluating, based on the configuration information, the capacity of each of said plurality of different system configurations for supporting said workload.

A method executable by a computer system, comprising:

• determining results of a single file benchmark for each of a plurality of encoding bit rates of a single file served by at least a first streaming media server configuration, wherein the result of the single file benchmark for a given encoding bit rate identifies the maximum number of concurrent streams of the single file that the at least a first streaming media server configuration can supply to a population of clients at the given encoding bit rate;
• determining results of a unique file benchmark for each of said plurality of encoding bit rates, wherein the result of the unique file benchmark for a given encoding bit rate identifies the maximum number of concurrent streams of different files that the at least a first streaming media server configuration can supply to the population of clients at the given encoding bit rate;
• deriving, from the results of the single file benchmark and unique file benchmark, a cost function;
• receiving, into a capacity planning tool, workload information for a workload of client accesses of streaming media files from a server;
• and
• using, by the capacity planning tool, the cost function for said at least a first streaming media server configuration for evaluating a capacity of the at least a first streaming media server configuration for supporting the workload.