Streaming Server Hardware Engine Cuts Space, Energy

NPEngine, dubbed by its developer as the world’s first hardware engine for streaming servers that directly delivers video content from SSD to IP networks without accessing the server’s CPU or memory resources, will be demonstrated by Toshiba Corporation at the NAB Show next week.

According to the Tokyo-based company, its NPEngine “can simultaneously deliver up to 64,000 high-quality video streams at a rate of 40 Gigabit per sec, far surpassing the performance of a typical server, and reducing power consumption, the number of servers and the space required.” At NAB, Toshiba will showcase a server integrating the NPEngine; server products running NPEngine will be available this year.

“Toshiba’s NPEngine provides an alternative that eliminates burdens on server CPU and memory resources by delivering video content stored on SSD directly to IP networks,” Toshiba adds. “This direct delivery also boosts the number of high-quality video streams that can be delivered at once to 64,000 at 40 Gb per sec. This not only more than triples the performance of a 2RU server, it also cuts space requirements by 70 percent and power consumption by 77 percent for server arrays supporting simultaneous delivery of 1 million video streams."

NPEngine also reportedly is compliant with the newest HTTP adaptive bit rate streaming without any modification of existing HTTP streaming applications.