Hotstar and JioCinema are famous video streaming networks managing a lot of traffic and data. When developing a similar application, one must not underestimate the importance of a strong infrastructure enabling one to manage high traffic flows and provide users with a smooth user experience. In the blog post, we will mention the best practices for managing data and traffic regarding video streaming tools, such as Hotstar and JioCinema.
Hotstar has officially merged with JioCinema, and the combined platform is now called 'JioHotstar'.
Here are some best practices to help you handle large amounts of traffic and data in video streaming applications.
- Scalability
Scalability can be identified as one of the most crucial aspects related to managing high traffic volumes. Your application should be designed to be horizontally scalable, i.e., the traffic is normalized and you can add or chip in some extra servers/nodes. With cloud offerings in AWS and Google Cloud Platform, you can easily experience scalability with their scalable infrastructure and services such as load balancer, auto-scaling, and distributed databases.
- Content Delivery Networks (CDNs)
A CDN is a network of distributed edge-controlled server nodes stationed in diverse geographical locations that store and deliver content to the end-users. CDNs can reduce load on your servers, help eliminate latency, and enhance the user experience. Hotstar and JioCinema use CDN to deliver their content to their users anywhere in the world. Read more about What is a CDN? How does CDN work?
- Video Encoding and Transcoding
The encoding and transcoding of videos are critical in video streaming applications. Encoding compresses a video file, whereas transcoding changes the format of video files. Through effective video file encoding and transcoding, you can ensure a minimized file size of your video files, maximum reduction of your capacity, and a smooth user experience.
- Caching
Caching involves memory storage to decrease the occurrences of database access when data is frequently required. You can run into performance issues with an application and keep your database pressure-free by caching data such as user profiles, playlists, and often-viewed videos.
- Database Optimization
Optimization of the database is essential to deal with vast amounts of data. Your database schema must be designed to help make your application optimal based on the queries it will make. Also, indexes should be utilized to make queries fast and reduce the time consumed in data access. Hotstar and JioCinema keep distributed databases such as Apache Cassandra to deal with massive data sizes.
- Content Security
Content security is critical for video streaming applications that deal with sensitive content like movies and TV shows. You should use encryption techniques like AES-256 to protect your content from unauthorized access. You should also use digital rights management (DRM) solutions to ensure only authorized users can access your content.
- Monitoring and Analytics
To manage the reliability and performance of your application, it is necessary to monitor and analyze. Monitoring your application can give you early warning of issues and take action against them before they reach a critical point. Armed with analytics, you can understand user behaviour and preferences and modify your application to ensure the experience is better.
To sum it up, constructing such video streaming and JioCin applications and delivering. Utilispropere best practices will keep your application available, reliable, and performant at increased traffic levels. Never check the application conditions in the test environment: it has to be checked in realistic situations and tightened and improved constantly.
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