Solutions to mitigate ISP PL% impact on streaming

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AZchips
Comes here often

Solutions to mitigate ISP PL% impact on streaming

I am a volunteer helping a local church for IT related stuff.  Trying to come up to speed on Meraki and network admin.  I would love to hear suggestions on how I can improve YouTube streaming stability.

 

Our setup : MX64 -> C3560G Switch -> C2960 Switch   -> MS120 -> streaming box (1080P; 4.5Mbps Uplink demand) 

                  ISP: Cox business 300/30 Mbps (Dn/Up) on WAN1 

                  No WAN2 or Cellular.  

                  

The issue:  Sunday sermon streaming to YouTube is unstable.  Sometimes it stutters for a few mins.  Occasionally the entire session is just froze.  This doesn't happen every week, but often enough to cause complaints. 

 

Diagnostics so far: 

Since the two middle switches are not Meraki, I can't see all the QoS info End-to-End..

 

1) MS120 <> MX64 Dashboard throughput :  15.7Mbps (btw, is this Dn/Up total or each direction?)

    Streaming box <> MS120 cable test OK. 

    So I ruled out the potential issues from Streaming box to MX64.

 

2)  Based on what I see from Dashboard MX64 Uplink, I want say ISP PL% issue is the likely culprit.  

From MX64 Uplink - I could be wrong here but I recalled any PL above 0.5% would impact streaming quality.

s0UXZzk

 

From MX64 Network Usage - we're nowhere near the 30Mbps uplink limit.  

R0Gkrz1

If you agree with my assessment - WAN1 PL% being the problem, adding WAN2 or cellular seems to be the solution.  My questions as following: 

 

Q1: Am I reading the data right?  The problem is in ISP, not within the church intranet.

 

Q2: the idea is to switch "only the streaming box" (static IP) to the alternative Uplink whenever WAN1 PL% is >1% (I'd love to set to 0.5%; but Meraki requires an integer in setting PL%).  Is it possible from QoS policy perspective? 

 

Q3: There is no other ISP in our area therefore we'd use cellular data as failover and we would like to use Verizon (which has a cellular tower next to us).  We'd buy a 4G LTE modem (not sure if we need 5G yet).  The question is, should I use it as WAN2 or Cellular connection to MX64?  My research so far indicates that Cellular can be used only as failover i.e. when WAN1 is dead, and not using performance as criteria.  Is it correct? 

 

Feedback appreciated!  

 

1 ACCEPTED SOLUTION
cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

@AZchips I think you can only automatically redirect SD-WAN traffic based on packet loss etc., I don't think this control works for internet only connections as there isn't another end to use for the measurement.

 

As @DarrenOC said an MG would be a good bet on WAN2, but you'd have to manually switch it over.  Bear in mind that as you are streaming, the stream will come from a different IP address when coming over WAN2, not sure if that matters to you?

 

Personally I'd engage with the ISP as that kind of packet loss is dreadful.  Below is the graph from my wfh MX64 on a home VDSL 55/10 connection in a small UK town:

cmr_0-1610883772833.png

 

 

 

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5 REPLIES 5
DarrenOC
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

Once your packets hit the internet they’re out of your control. I would say this looks like an ISP issue. The latency on the link is on the high side and loss is quite choppy.

 

with regards 4G, you could use a Meraki cellular gateway - MG21.  Connect this to WAN2 and switch over as the preferred route when live streaming (if of course it’s upto the job)

 

https://meraki.cisco.com/product-collateral/mg21-datasheet/?file

Darren OConnor | doconnor@resalire.co.uk
https://www.linkedin.com/in/darrenoconnor/

I'm not an employee of Cisco/Meraki. My posts are based on Meraki best practice and what has worked for me in the field.
cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

@AZchips I think you can only automatically redirect SD-WAN traffic based on packet loss etc., I don't think this control works for internet only connections as there isn't another end to use for the measurement.

 

As @DarrenOC said an MG would be a good bet on WAN2, but you'd have to manually switch it over.  Bear in mind that as you are streaming, the stream will come from a different IP address when coming over WAN2, not sure if that matters to you?

 

Personally I'd engage with the ISP as that kind of packet loss is dreadful.  Below is the graph from my wfh MX64 on a home VDSL 55/10 connection in a small UK town:

cmr_0-1610883772833.png

 

 

 

AZchips
Comes here often

Thanks for responses from both of you.

 

@cmr  We are streaming (Uplink) from church to Youtube server so the dest. IP shouldn't change.

 

I long for the "VPN Traffic and Custom Performance Classes" mentioned in the article below.  It switches to WAN2  automatically based on defined performance matrix.  You said this won't work for internet only connections as there isn't another end to use for the measurement.  Why is that?  Is there a workaround?  Manual switching is not desirable.

 

https://documentation.meraki.com/MX/Firewall_and_Traffic_Shaping/MX_Load_Balancing_and_Flow_Preferen...

 

cmr
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

@AZchips unfortunately automatic switching only works over a VPN, I really would chase your ISP

PhilipDAth
Kind of a big deal
Kind of a big deal

My first thought - are people also using the Internet while you are doing streaming?  Perhaps guests to your church are soaking up all the bandwidth.

 

If you do a test stream when the church is "closed" does the problem go away?  If this fixes it, you will need to use traffic shaping to guarantee bandwidth for the video.

 

If the problem stills happens, what happens if you plug your camera directly into an MX64 LAN port and you do a test stream - do you still have the same issue (this rules in or out a lot of your internal infrastructure)?

 

 

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