Leveraging SDN to provide an in-network QoE measurement framework

Online video streaming using HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) is becoming the most popular content delivery mechanism for media services. Network and content providers would like to ensure a high degree of video Quality of Experience (QoE) for their end-users. However, traditional network-level metrics do not necessarily reflect the end-users´ true perception of delivered content.We introduce an in-network QoE measurement framework (IQMF) that provides QoE monitoring for HAS streams as a service. The framework leverages Software Defined Networking for its control plane functionality to streamline non-intrusive quality monitoring and to offer a closed control loop for QoE-aware service management. IQMF adopts two specifically designed QoE metrics to capture the user experience of HAS streams with respect to video fidelity and switching impact. Finally, we used a pan-European SDN testbed to demonstrate how IQMF can be used as a foundation for in-network QoE measurement and service optimisation.