Scaling 360-degree Adaptive Bitrate Video Delivery Over an SDN Architecture

End user requirements for the delivery of 360-degree media content creates unique challenges when considering operations on a large scale. Systematically taking advantage of existing network capacity is multifaceted and complex. Multipath TCP (MPTCP) can leverage numerous networks simultaneously, but its performance can suffer in congested environments due to inherent trade-offs between responsiveness and load balancing. This paper presents a technique that mitigates these limitations in a software-defined architecture, particularly when operating among many users simultaneously. Using Network Simulator 3 (NS-3) combined with Mininet and Floodlight controllers to manage the network, we designed a framework that actively manages Quick UDP Internet Connections (QUIC) and/or MPTCP usage with a large number of users. Testbed experimental results reveal that the average multipath differential delay decreased by up to 40% in campus networks with 500 or more users. These results are encouraging when compared against current and experimental multipath algorithms that attempt to address similar issues. In campus networks with more than 800 users, analyses show the framework outperforms standard MPTCP in network efficiency by up to 30%.