DVR on Amazon EC2

Hi there … I’m starting to move my project to next level, for what I will start testing Wowza on Amazon Cloud services for streaming.

I’ve been reading and playing around with my AMI and start up package to include my app configuration and custom modules.

The decision to make now if I can keep my DVR as an origin and use EC2 as edge repeaters to play my recorded DVR content, or have everything on Amazon. The biggest point will be storage capacity.

So, can I use S3 buckets as destination to record my DVR’d content? If so, I assume I can have several load balanced AMI to playback content from same DVR storage … am I right?

If you could point me to some info how to do this, I’ll appreciate it

Regards

Take a look at this guide:

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-configure-mediacache-for-wowza-ndvr

Richard

You can use S3FS to mount a S3 bucket.

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-use-the-fuse-based-file-system-backed-by-amazon-s3

We don’t recommend recording directly to a S3FS mount, but Wowza customer and forum contributor Jake Hilton says he has been able to do it without problems:

https://www.wowza.com/forums/showthread.php?10572-S3FS-Fuse-based-file-system/page3

But we still do not recommend. You can use the built-in ModuleMediaWriterFileMover moves recordings when they are complete, but I am not sure how it might work with nDVR. I will have to get back to you on that

https://www.wowza.com/docs/how-to-move-recordings-from-live-streams

Richard

Actually, my mistake. This is just not possible at present. First there is not an easy way to move nDVR files to S3 like the FileMover does, but moreover, you cannot playback nDVR store from S3.

Richard

Thanks Richard … I see that I can use Media Cache for using origin/edge for DVR content

What about recording DVR content on a S3 bucket? I’ve read several articles saying that it’s not recommended to record live streams on a mounted S3 bucket due to performance. And also, saying that playback has to be through vods3 application. But I haven’t found any reference to DVR’d content.

Can I record to S3 buckets as a destination for DVR recording directly (meaning not only content but manifest that control DVR)? If so, how would the set up be? and last one … how would I playback if one server or multiple servers need to access it? should one be the origin and the other ones repeaters of it, or will all of them be able to read from the bucket directly?

Note: I have tested using DVR recording to a NAS and multiple servers reading from it and it works, so I’m wondering if same can be done on Amazon

Apologies for so many questions together

Thanks Richard … I see that I can use Media Cache for using origin/edge for DVR content

What about recording DVR content on a S3 bucket? I’ve read several articles saying that it’s not recommended to record live streams on a mounted S3 bucket due to performance. And also, saying that playback has to be through vods3 application. But I haven’t found any reference to DVR’d content.

Can I record to S3 buckets as a destination for DVR recording directly (meaning not only content but manifest that control DVR)? If so, how would the set up be? and last one … how would I playback if one server or multiple servers need to access it? should one be the origin and the other ones repeaters of it, or will all of them be able to read from the bucket directly?

Note: I have tested using DVR recording to a NAS and multiple servers reading from it and it works, so I’m wondering if same can be done on Amazon

Apologies for so many questions together

Hi there … sorry for bugging on this … could you give me some advice whether this could be a feasible option to try or if it will definitely not work for DVR?

Thanks for any response!!

Thanks for the response. Now I know I need an AMI with enough disk space for my DVR content, and a buch of repeaters set up for streaming

Cheers!!