Methodologies for generating HTTP streaming video workloads to evaluate web server performance
Jim Summers, Tim B. Brecht, Derek L. Eager, Bernard Wong · 2012
Recent increases in live and on-demand video streaming have dramatically changed the Internet landscape. In North America, Netflix alone accounts for 28% of all and 33% of peak downstream Internet traffic on fixed access links, with further rapid growth expected [26]. This increase in streaming traffic coincides with the steady adoption of HTTP for use in video streaming. Many streaming video providers, such as Apple, Adobe, Akamai, Netflix and Microsoft, now use HTTP to stream content [5]. Therefore, it is critical that we understand the impact of this emerging workload on web servers. Unlike other web content, a recent study [13] of streaming video shows that even small infrequent latency spikes, manifested as buffering related pauses, can result in shorter viewing times especially during live broadcasts. Unfortunately, no appropriate benchmarks exist to evaluate web servers under HTTP video streaming workloads.