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  1. #1
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    VPS for live video streaming

    Hello everyone,

    I'm looking for a VPS for live video streaming (not porn, in case that matters for selecting a provider). The source video is from a camera feeding a 1.5 Mbps stream via RTSP to a Wowza media server. Clients will stream from the media server using Flash player.

    Most of the time, there will likely only be a handful of people watching, but I estimate several times a month, when we have special events, there could be 100 simultaneous viewers. So I would occasionally need to sustain over 150 Mbps transfer rates for hours at a time.

    No content will live on the server, so hard disk I/O will not be a bottleneck. It simply will be receiving a single video stream in, and rebroadcasting it out to all the viewers.

    I'm thinking a single VPS with a port speed of 1Gbps would suffice, or multiple VPS's with 100 Mbps port speeds, and use round robin DNS to spread the load.

    I'm in Seattle, and most of the viewers would be local, so I think a local, or at least a west coast provider would be ideal. BuyVM comes to mind, since they have 1Gbps port speeds, and a lot of allowed transfer per month for a pretty low price.

    Thanks in advance for any advice you guys (and gals) have to offer!

    -- Kevin

  2. #2
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    Any specific RAM requirements or budget?

  3. #3
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    Wowza recommends 2GB RAM for their server. I'd like to keep it under $50/month, but if it costs more to get what I need, then so be it.

  4. #4
    Quote Originally Posted by k_ross View Post
    Wowza recommends 2GB RAM for their server. I'd like to keep it under $50/month, but if it costs more to get what I need, then so be it.
    In this situation with 2GB of RAM request why don't you want to have a look at offers for dedicated server. That would be the same budget option I guess.

  5. #5
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    Quote Originally Posted by SiberForum View Post
    In this situation with 2GB of RAM request why don't you want to have a look at offers for dedicated server. That would be the same budget option I guess.
    Really? I did some looking around, and it looks like it will cost about double that for 2GB RAM and 100Mbps or greater port speed. I can get a dedicated server with good bandwidth for that little? That would be cool if true.

    Thanks!
    -- Kevin

  6. #6
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    Guess I needed to look a little harder. I found some dedicated servers in the dedicated offers section of this website that should fit the bill, for $50/month or less.

    Thanks!
    -- Kevin

  7. #7
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    Hi Kevin,

    Interesting project, I did something similar with my brother a few years back using DSS (Darwin streaming Server)

    BuyVM have a good reputation so you should be good with them, although I have never used Wowza, DSS on CentOS was a CPU hog! so if wowza is the same you may want to discuss it with BuyVM/Frantech first as they may have issues with that.

    I would tend to agree that a dedicated server may be your best option though, complete control and you dont need to care so much about CPU spikes.

    No reason why you could not re-stream globally via a bunch of cheap VPS's too in the future I guess
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  8. #8
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    150Mbps bandwidth sustained for hours is alot for a $50/mo price range IMHO. Essentially you're eating up a pair of dedicated 100Mbps ports. I'd REALLY make sure to test that out before going live or you're in for a rude awakening. If you burst up to 150Mbps for a short while, maybe you're OK at $50, but to get that sustained for any long period of time is expensive.

  9. #9
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    The $50 budget is a concern for me. Even under steady usage, I feel like you'll be eating up the resources quick. Maybe you should give it a try and cancel the subscription if the VPS are underpowered for the project.
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  10. #10
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    The dedicated server you get, would probably perform far worst than a 2 GB VPS from a premium provider.

    Let's assume you average 30 Mbps. That would be 9 TB of bandwidth minimum. Of course, you could average 50 Mbps or 100 Mbps. I would find a host that will allow you 9TB to start with, and upgrade as time goes on.

    I would advise you to contact providers and ask about special bandwidth pricing for quantity. $50 is not going to happen for quality bandwidth. I would up your budget to $100/month if you want to get a decent offer.
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  11. #11
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    Just re read your post and I think the idea of a roound robin load balancer might actually be the best idea after all, the issue with that being you either need guarantees your VPS's are on different nodes with 1 host or you take a risk with multiple hosts but then you have redundancy as you can cancel with any of the under powered hosts and stay life while to move to another.

    Either way though I would still recommend you go with 1000 mbit VPS's they are allot more common now, I say this because for all you know the physical nodes may only have a 100mbit connection meaning you could destroy other VPS's network performance at peak times and get suspended.
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  12. #12
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    Thanks everyone. Yeah I was a bit worried about the ability of a provider to be able to give sustained bandwidth for a few hours at a time.

    I may still end up going the VPS route instead of dedicated, simply because I can get more bandwidth for the money, and bandwidth seems to be the deciding factor here, more so than RAM or CPU cores or disk space. I will probably get 2 to start with, either on different nodes or more likely different providers, and DNS round robin them. I will try to make sure to only go with providers that offer 1Gbps port speeds.

    Thanks!
    -- Kevin

  13. #13
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    Quote Originally Posted by EndServer View Post
    The dedicated server you get, would probably perform far worst than a 2 GB VPS from a premium provider.

    Let's assume you average 30 Mbps. That would be 9 TB of bandwidth minimum. Of course, you could average 50 Mbps or 100 Mbps. I would find a host that will allow you 9TB to start with, and upgrade as time goes on.

    I would advise you to contact providers and ask about special bandwidth pricing for quantity. $50 is not going to happen for quality bandwidth. I would up your budget to $100/month if you want to get a decent offer.
    $50 isn't going to happen with anyhost or any bandwidth provider for a sustained 150mbps. Your talking $500 in bandwidth alone. Someone may let you start at any offer and level but soon as they realize the sustained rate you'll be shopping again.

    I do agree a 2gb vps would handle this load just fine and way better off than a dedicated server you won't fully use. But that bandwidth rate is going to be killer to find on a vps. Your budget has to come way up anyway you spin it.
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  14. #14
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    Quote Originally Posted by k_ross View Post
    Thanks everyone. Yeah I was a bit worried about the ability of a provider to be able to give sustained bandwidth for a few hours at a time.

    I may still end up going the VPS route instead of dedicated, simply because I can get more bandwidth for the money, and bandwidth seems to be the deciding factor here, more so than RAM or CPU cores or disk space. I will probably get 2 to start with, either on different nodes or more likely different providers, and DNS round robin them. I will try to make sure to only go with providers that offer 1Gbps port speeds.

    Thanks!
    -- Kevin
    A few hours of bursting to those levels is not the same as needing a sustained 150mbps, night and day. You need to find your average use and go off that. Normally these days you shouldn't have to worry too much about peaks and spikes unless they do turn into avg sustained rates.
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  15. #15
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    Quote Originally Posted by Jag View Post
    $50 isn't going to happen with anyhost or any bandwidth provider for a sustained 150mbps. Your talking $500 in bandwidth alone. Someone may let you start at any offer and level but soon as they realize the sustained rate you'll be shopping again.

    I do agree a 2gb vps would handle this load just fine and way better off than a dedicated server you won't fully use. But that bandwidth rate is going to be killer to find on a vps. Your budget has to come way up anyway you spin it.
    How is that $500 in bandwidth? Whose bandwidth is that? It's not Hurricane Electric bandwidth. Where did you get this number from?

    He will be bursting to 150 Mbps for a long amount of time. He'll probably be averaging 50 - 75 Mbps if he has 100 listeners daily. So, as I said earlier. Find a host with 9 - 10TB of bandwidth (contact hosts privately for such large quantities as you may get discounts), and figure out an upgrade plan. If your numbers are accurate and daily, you can easily use 20 - 25TB of bandwidth a month.
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  16. #16
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    Hmm, maybe I wasn't clear. I don't expect to have 100 viewers daily, but only maybe once a week at most, when we have special events. Most of the time it will probably be only a few viewers.

    Thanks!
    -- Kevin

  17. #17
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    Quote Originally Posted by k_ross View Post
    Hmm, maybe I wasn't clear. I don't expect to have 100 viewers daily, but only maybe once a week at most, when we have special events. Most of the time it will probably be only a few viewers.

    Thanks!
    -- Kevin
    Oh! That is much easier! I would expect that 3 - 5TB of bandwidth would be more than enough, now.
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  18. #18
    Check this out videowhisper.com

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