Resilient service ecologies for IPTV: Using RESTful services to enable resilience

Abstract

Delivering TV services via internet protocols over high-speed connections is commonly referred to as IPTV (internet protocol television). Similar to the app-stores of smartphones, IPTV platforms enable the emergence of IPTV service ecologies in which 3 rd party developers provide services to consumer that add value to the IPTV experience. A key issue in the IPTV ecosystem is the resilience of its services. This paper focuses on the issues related resilience in digital service ecologies. Starting with a review of resilience research in the area of biological ecologies we focus on differences and solutions for digital ecologies. Within the context of service ecologies we compare SOA and REST as design options and their impact with respect to resilience. Resilience, Ecology, IPTV, REST, SOA I. INTERACTIVE IPTVDelivering TV services via internet protocols over high-speed connections is commonly referred to as IPTV (internet protocol television). IPTV platforms differ from internet-based multimedia platforms (e.g. Netflix, YouTube, iTunes, etc.) in terms of content, delivery and costs. IPTV offers its subscribers live TV content in addition to the stored content of multi-media platforms. The IPTV video-ondemand streaming and/or downloading services are therefore a superset of the services provided by the internet-based multimedia platforms.To ensure that content-providers grant access to premium content, IPTV platforms offer very dependable (secure, safe, reliable and available) service delivery. Using bandwidth provisioning and locked-down set-top boxes, it becomes possible to allow subscribers instant access to highly soughtafter digital assets (e.g. new tv-shows, new movie releases in HD) without compromising the DRM constraints of the content owners. However all this comes at nearly twice the costs. In Canada (Saskatchewan) a Netflix service can costs a user $38 a month (30$ internet + 8$ Netflix), a medium IPTV service package is however, $72 (internet included).To combat the migration of customers from IPTV to basic internet services, providers have begun the move towards interactive IPTV platforms that allow for apps on the TV.Interactive IPTV platforms allow providers to blur the lines between classical TV and computers. Platforms like Microsoft Mediaroom, allow IPTV providers to embed applications into the video-stream and thus increase the interactivity of TV (see figure 1). Microsoft Mediaroom [1] is one of the leading platforms in this market segment. Especially telcos across the globe (e.g. AT&T, Bell, Deutsche Telekom, BTVision, etc.) favor Mediaroom since it offers backend support that fits their specific needs. The Microsoft Mediaroom platform is a servercentric IPTV solution that is based on XML documents delivered over HTTP. This server-centric design is partially due to resource limitations and the need for a secure solution. Figure 1: A simple MRML code snippetSet-top boxes are optimized to transform in a fast, secure and reliable manner IPTV data into TV displayable content. To avoid costs, set-t...