Estimating peak concurrency
Use your own history where you have it. For a first live event, plan for most buyers watching at once and add headroom.
- On-demand: a small share of monthly active users, commonly a few percent, at the busiest point of an evening
- A major release: several times the normal evening peak for the first days
- Live event: a large share of ticket holders or interested subscribers, arriving within minutes
- Linear channel: follows the schedule, peaking with the most popular programs
What the peak determines
Peak delivery rate is peak concurrency multiplied by average bitrate: 5,000 viewers at 4 Mbps is 20 Gbps. A CDN absorbs that, but the systems behind it, sign-in, entitlement checks, DRM licensing and payment, also have to handle everyone arriving together.
The steepness of the arrival matters as much as the height. Ten thousand viewers joining over an hour is easy; the same number in two minutes is a stress test.
Planning for it
- Check the concurrent-stream allowance of your plan before an event, not during
- Tell your platform vendor about large events in advance
- Open a pre-show early to spread arrivals
- Keep purchase and sign-in paths as light as possible at start time
Last reviewed