About stream splitting
When this feature is enabled, SteelHead splits Silverlight smooth streams, Adobe Flash HTTP dynamic streams, and Apple HTTP Live Streaming (HLS). Supports Microsoft Silverlight video and Silverlight extensions. For Adobe Flash streams, you must set up the video origin server before enabling this feature. Live and on-demand video streams are supported.
Use this control to support multiple branch office users from a single real-time TCP stream. The SteelHead identifies live streaming video URL fragment requests and delays any request that is already in progress. When the client receives the response, it returns the same response to all clients requesting that URL. SteelHead can store the video fragments for 30 seconds or so to keep end users watching the same live video in sync.
As an example, when employees in branch offices simultaneously start clients (through browser plugins) that all request the same video fragment, client-side SteelHeads delay requests for that fragment because the request is already outstanding. Since many identical requests typically are made before the first request is responded to, the result is many hits to the server and many bytes across the WAN. When you enable stream splitting, the appliances identify live streaming video URL fragment requests and hold subsequent requests. When the appliance receives the response, it’s delivered to all end users that requested it. Thus, only one request and response pair for a video fragment transfers over the WAN. With stream splitting, the appliance replicates one TCP stream for each individual end user.
Stream splitting doesn’t change the number of sockets opened to the server, but it does reduce the number of requests. Without this optimization, each fragment is requested once per end user. With this optimization, each fragment is requested only once.
This feature requires that HTTP optimization is enabled on the client-side and server-side appliances. The client-side appliance doesn’t require a service restart.
You can prepopulate video at branch offices during off-peak periods and then retrieve them. Use the protocol http prepop list url command for later viewing.
Stream splitting statistics appear in the Live Video Stream Splitting report.