Multi-party WebRTC as a managed service over multi-operator SDN

Abstract

We propose a new WebRTC premium service API and a distributed E2E WebRTC service management framework to enable provisioning premium WebRTC services across multiple network service providers (NSP) with software defined network (SDN) infrastructure. The proposed architecture supports both two-party point-to-point (P2P) and multi-party videoconferencing (via a selective forwarding unit (SFU)) with end-to-end (E2E) quality of service (QoS) as a value-added service. Each NSP has full control of its own network resources. We propose a WebRTC service manager (WSM) that is hosted by each NSP. WSMs collaborate with each other in a distributed manner to orchestrate a network slice with specified bitrate and delay over the E2E path between two clients in P2P service and between sending clients and SFU and between the SFU and receiving clients in multi-party service without a need for a central inter-operator service orchestration authority. Clients support scalable VP9 video codec, which is configured according to agreed client upload and download bitrates. Our experimental results show that the proposed managed WebRTC service with guaranteed video quality across multiple NSPs provides lower delay and consumes less network resources compared to today’s best-effort WebRTC communications.