Sunstar: A Cost-effective Multi-Server Solution for Reliable Video Delivery

In spite of much progress and many advances, cost-effective, high-quality video delivery over the internet remains elusive. To address this ongoing challenge, we propose Sunstar, a solution that leverages simultaneous downloads from multiple servers to preserve video quality. The novelty in Sunstar is not so much in its use of multiple servers but in the design of a schedule that balances improvements in video quality against increases in (peering) costs. The paper’s main contributions are in elucidating the impact on the cost of various approaches towards improving video quality, including the use of multiple servers, and incorporating this understanding into the design of a scheduler capable of realizing an efficient trade-off. Our results show that Sunstar’s scheduling algorithm can significantly improve performance (up to 50% in some instances) without cost impacts.