Mushroom Networks

How to reduce WAN latency for real-time applications such as voice, video and other chatty interactive apps?

My blog post about VoIP reliability got a lot of interest, so I wanted to talk a little bit more about the finer details and the larger real-time application set, namely, voice, video and other interactive chatty applications. Even though they all have their own unique WAN requirements (and therefore challenges), the common theme between voice, video and chatty applications is the need for a reliable and low-latency IP tunnel.

Let’s take an example of an enterprise that is doing a VoIP implementation based on an IP-PBX in their head-office/data-center and have their branch offices connect to the PBX via the branch office WAN links. This application requires a low-latency reliable connectivity between the branch offices and the head-quarter office. (This exact same setup applies for a small standalone office where the IP-PBX is a hosted PBX and their SIP trunks at their ASP (Application Service Provider), in that case their WAN link from the office to their service provider needs to have low-latency and needs to be reliable). The challenge is clear, if the brach office network is down, their phones are down… A new type of WAN optimization that goes beyond caching and compression is required.

Historically, the primary challenge of VoIP over POTS (Plain Old Telephone Service) has been the lack of five 9s reliability of VoIP and the lower quality as a result of uncontrolled transport (in the above scenario, the WAN link connecting the branch office to the head-office/data-center or their VoIP ASP). A primary contributor to this unreliability is the WAN links that carry the VoIP traffic. By its nature, Internet Protocol doesn’t guarantee the delivery of the packets within a certain time period. WAN lines can drop, they sometimes have spikes in latency – we all live through these well known issues. If one WAN link not just quite there in terms of performance, being able to bond several WAN links will not only provide the required bandwidth for all applications, including VoIP for more simultaneous calls, but will also provide the high 9s reliability that VoIP, video and other chatty interactive applications desperately need. With various WAN connections with varying latency metrics, all you need is a real-time broadband bonding WAN optimizer network box that bonds the available links that takes advantage of the lowest latency available in the bonded pipe with dynamic resource allocation, auto-failover and advanced QoS.

Next week, Mushroom Networks will be showcasing the Broadband Bonding technologies and its Internet bonding devices at booth #2352 during Interop trade-show in Las Vegas. This is the new tunnel addition to the Internet bonding devices by Mushroom Networks that serves enterprises of all sizes.

VoIP is just one type of interactive application that requires low-latency. The same requirements apply for other chatty applications where the branch office employee is accessing the servers in the public or private cloud (e.g. citrix, terminal, sharepoint etc). Similarly, the Real-Time Broadband Bonding enables a low-latency reliable tunnel between the client and the server for any type of chatty applications.

Wireless video streaming empowering artists

Today at NAB (National Association for Broadcasters) show, Mushroom Networks is announcing a new live video streaming product over bonded 3G or 4G cellular, the Streamer PRO. Streamer PRO is capable of connecting directly to a video camera through industry standard interfaces. The built-in h.264 adaptive encoder will encode the video signal anywhere from CIF resolution to HD quality and transmit the video over bonded cellular data cards. The aggregation of wireless cards establishes a highly reliable and fast Internet connection for uninterrupted and high quality video streaming to any video server (or CDN, Content Delivery Network) possible to stream to many viewers on the web.

This new solution brings live video capability to many applications including artists. Mushroom Networks is proud to be the official Corporate sponsor of the Riley Grace project Enabling a young artist to reach a live fan base has brought the Music and Technology World together empowering both parties to reach a live audience. It has been an absolute blast to work with such a bright and talented young star and her team. The team being local to us in Orange County has helped Mushroom Networks as a technology provider, understand how vital our live streaming tool is in reaching a live audience. This exposure has pushed Mushroom Networks engineering team even farther in their pursuit of delivering an excellent live video experience to the viewer and users. It is our pleasure to be part of the Riley Grace project, we enjoy her great music and providing the technology that helps her bring that amazing sound to her fans. We look forward to others innovative and creative artists following in her footsteps. To hear the latest release by Riley and to down load her new track “Wicked Ways” go to www.rileygrace.com click on the music tab ,click  wicked ways, then buy now click confirm track and enter coupon code “rileygrace” and enjoy.

Can you load balance 3G/4G or is bonding 3G/4G the only way?

If you are OK with old load balancing technologies that limit the aggregate speed to only one of your WAN links, you can probably live with a load-balancing router if you are load-balancing DSL. Although you still have to suffer the loss of the session / application anytime there is a link failure on your wired WAN links. However, if you are trying aggregation of 3G 4G based wireless WAN connections, can you get away with simple load-balancing or do you need intelligent 3G 4G bonding technologies such as Broadband Bonding? The short answer is an astounding MUST have bonding as load-balancing will not cut it for any serious applications.

The reason is simple: cellular links are prone to fluctuations of the RF (Radio Frequency) characteristics because of fast and slow fading phenomena that is created by the inherent nature of the channel, in this case the ether; with all types of unpredictable obstacles such as trees, building, hills and valleys. Because of this wild unavoidable RF characteristics, the cellular WAN links will always have built-in large range of variation which will swing from peak rates to slow rates over very short time periods, usually within seconds or smaller. If one tries to load-balance, i.e. assign a single session (say a file transfer) to only one of the available 3G 4G links via a load-balancing device, there is a good chance that session can get stuck on a 3G/4G card that will not have good channel characteristics at that very moment – you are at best shooting in the dark. So with load-balancing you may even end-up hurting the performance compared to a single card.

The only viable approach for  bonding 3G 4G wireless cellular links is to utilize “Network Calculus”, a theory that was introduced by Prof. Rene Cruz decades ago, that groundbreaking research enabled the modeling and prediction of highly varying channels via broadband bonding. By leveraging Network Calculus, a Broadband Bonding algorithm can bond 3G 4G data cards in such a way that the wild fluctuations can be shielded from any of the specific IP traffic. This results in a much more predictable, reliable and fast connectivity as a direct result of intelligent aggregation of wireless cards and therefore provide much better end-user experience. This technology is so powerful that it even enables live video streaming over the bonded cellular 3G 4G cards in very challenging mobile environments. Would you like to see some sample videos to experience Network Calculus in action?

Cahit Akin, CEO, Mushroom Networks, Inc. 

http://www.mushroomnetworks.com