NPEngine: First hardware engine that directly distributes video content streams from SSD to IP networks

Without having to access the server's CPU or memory resources, Toshiba develops NPEngine, capable of distributing video content streams from SSD to IP networks.

Toshiba He has announced in NAB the development of Npengine, the world's first hardware engine for streaming servers that directly distributes video content from SSD to IP networks without having to access the server's CPU or memory resources. The NPEngine can simultaneously distribute up to 64,000 high quality streams video at a rate of 40 gigabits per second, far exceeding the performance of a typical server and reducing power consumption, the number of servers and the space that is needed.

In his stand in Las Vegas, Toshiba has presented a server that integrates Npengine. In addition, this year server products that work with Npengine are also available.

In this current world of networks, more and more videos about IP networks are distributed to computers, tablets, smartphones and smart television. As this volume increases daily, the need to have powerful video streaming equipment on the server side becomes increasingly evident.

For streaming to be successful, servers can be recovered and distributed large amounts of stored data. Current servers manage this volume with software, using the integrated server and SDRAM CPU. This limits the video of video streams that can be distributed simultaneously to approximately 20,000 users in a typical 2RU server. With these limitations, the solution to manage hundreds of thousands of streams at the same time has been to increase the number of servers. This approach requires many servers, a lot of space and great power consumption.

The Toshiba Npengine provides an alternative that eliminates loads on the server CPU and memory resources by distributing video content stored in SSD directly to IP networks. This direct distribution also increases the video number of high quality streams that can be distributed immediately to 64,000 users to 40 GB per second. This not only triples the performance of a 2RU server, but also reduces the need for 70% space and power consumption by 77% for servers sets that simultaneously support distribution of 1,000,000 streams.

NPEngine is also compatible with the most recent HTTP adaptable bit rate streaming without modifying existing HTTP streaming applications.