Towards QoE-aware video streaming using SDN

Today´s over the top (OTT) video service providers take advantage of content distribution networks (CDNs) and adaptive bitrate (ABR) streaming where a video player adjusts resolutions based on end-to-end network conditions. Although the mechanisms are useful to improve user-perceived video quality, they do not resolve the root causes of congestion problems. To pinpoint a bottleneck and improve video quality-of-experience (QoE), we leverage a software-defined networking (SDN) platform from OTT video service provider´s point of view. Our proposed SDN application is designed to monitor network conditions of streaming flow in real time and dynamically change routing paths using multi-protocol label switching (MPLS) traffic engineering (TE) to provide reliable video watching experience. We use an off-the-shelf SDN platform to show the feasibility of our approaches.