Streaming media has evolved from a niche technology to the primary way content is consumed worldwide. From live streams of gaming tournaments on Twitch to watching 4K movies on Netflix, from video conferences on Zoom to the spread of short videos on TikTok—streaming is an integral part of our digital lives. This explosive growth in demand creates enormous challenges for the infrastructure that underpins these services.
Ensuring seamless, high-quality streaming for thousands or even millions of simultaneous viewers requires much more than just a powerful server. It requires a carefully designed architecture that can handle huge amounts of traffic, minimize latency, and provide a flawless experience for every user, regardless of their location and device. In this article, we will look at the latest trends in streaming infrastructure and explain how Unihost helps companies build reliable and scalable streaming platforms.
Key Trends in Streaming Infrastructure
1. Bare Metal as the Foundation for Transcoding
Transcoding is the process of converting a source video file into various formats and bitrates to ensure optimal playback on different devices and at different internet connection speeds. This is an extremely resource-intensive process that requires enormous computing power.
Although cloud services offer transcoding solutions, they are often expensive and less productive due to virtualization overhead. That is why bare metal servers remain the best choice for transcoding tasks. They offer:
- Maximum CPU Performance: Direct access to powerful multi-core processors allows for the simultaneous transcoding of multiple streams without performance loss.
- GPU Acceleration: Modern GPUs have built-in hardware encoders (e.g., NVIDIA NVENC) that can perform transcoding much faster and more efficiently than CPUs, freeing up the processor for other tasks.
- Predictable Costs: Unlike cloud services where you pay for every minute of transcoding, a bare metal server has a fixed monthly cost, making it easy to forecast expenses.
2. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) for Global Reach
Even the most powerful server cannot provide low latency for viewers around the world. Distance matters. This is where Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) come into play. A CDN is a geographically distributed network of caching servers (Edge servers) that store copies of your content.
When a user requests a video, the CDN automatically directs them to the nearest server, which significantly reduces the distance the data must travel. This results in:
- Faster video loading and less buffering.
- Reduced load on your origin server, as most requests are handled by the caching servers.
- Better scalability to handle sudden traffic spikes.
3. Low-Latency Protocols: WebRTC, HLS, and DASH
In the world of live streaming, latency is a critical factor. Traditional streaming protocols like RTMP had a latency of several seconds. Modern trends are aimed at achieving sub-second latency.
- WebRTC (Web Real-Time Communication): This protocol provides the lowest latency (often less than 500 ms) and is ideal for interactive applications such as video conferencing and online casinos. However, it is more complex to scale.
- Low-Latency HLS and DASH: Apple (HLS) and MPEG (DASH) have developed extensions for their popular adaptive bitrate protocols that can significantly reduce latency to 1-2 seconds while maintaining high scalability and device compatibility.
4. Unmetered Bandwidth
Streaming generates huge amounts of traffic. The pay-per-gigabyte models common with cloud providers can quickly lead to uncontrolled and astronomical bills. Therefore, one of the key trends is the transition to hosting providers that offer servers with unmetered bandwidth.
This means you pay a fixed monthly fee for a port of a certain speed (e.g., 1 Gbps or 10 Gbps) and can transfer as much data as that port allows without additional charges. This provides complete cost predictability and allows you to scale your audience without fear of unexpected bills.
5. Content Security: DRM and Piracy Protection
Protecting premium content from unauthorized access and piracy is a top priority for many streaming services. Digital Rights Management (DRM) technologies such as Google Widevine, Apple FairPlay, and Microsoft PlayReady provide content encryption and control over who can view it and how. Integration with DRM providers is an important aspect of modern streaming infrastructure.
Unihost: Your Reliable Streaming Infrastructure
Creating a successful streaming service requires a reliable, scalable, and cost-effective infrastructure. Unihost offers all the necessary components to build your streaming platform, allowing you to focus on creating quality content and engaging your audience.
How Unihost helps streaming companies succeed:
- Powerful Bare Metal Servers for Transcoding: We offer a wide range of dedicated servers (from €23.4) with powerful CPUs and the option to install NVIDIA GPUs for maximum transcoding efficiency.
- Servers with Unmetered Bandwidth: Forget about traffic bills. Our servers with unmetered 1 Gbps, 10 Gbps, and higher ports provide complete cost predictability, allowing you to serve any audience without financial surprises.
- Global Network for Building Your Own CDN: Our data centers, located in Europe, North America, and Asia, are the ideal building blocks for creating your own content delivery network. You can place your origin and edge servers in key regions to be closer to your viewers.
- High-Speed NVMe Storage: Our servers are equipped with ultra-fast NVMe SSDs, ensuring instant access to your media content and its fast delivery.
- Full Control and Flexibility: You get full root access to your servers, allowing you to install any streaming software (Wowza, Nginx-RTMP, MistServer) and configure it to your needs.
Conclusion
The streaming infrastructure continues to evolve, becoming increasingly complex and demanding. Using bare metal servers for intensive computing tasks, building a global content delivery network, and choosing a model with unmetered bandwidth are key strategies for success in this competitive industry.
Ready to launch or scale your streaming service? Contact the Unihost team today for a free consultation. We will help you design and deploy an infrastructure that will provide a flawless experience for your viewers and accelerate the growth of your business.