Streaming Media Lens

Publication date: September 29, 2021 (Document history and contributors)

This whitepaper describes the AWS Streaming Media Lens for the AWS Well-Architected Framework, which helps customers apply best practices in the design, delivery, and maintenance of their cloud-based streaming media workloads. The document describes general design principles, as well as specific best practices and guidance for the five pillars of the Well-Architected Framework.

This paper is intended for those in technology roles, such as technology leaders, architects, developers, and operations team members. After reading this paper, you will understand AWS best practices and the strategies to use when designing and operating streaming media workloads in a cloud environment.

Introduction

The AWS Well-Architected Framework helps cloud architects build secure, high-performing, resilient, and efficient infrastructure for their applications and workloads. Based on five pillars — operational excellence, security, reliability, performance efficiency, and cost optimization — AWS Well-Architected provides a consistent approach for customers and AWS Partners to evaluate architectures, remediate risks, and implement designs that deliver business value.

In this Lens, we focus on how to design and deploy streaming media workloads by defining components, exploring common workload scenarios, and outlining design principles that help you to apply the AWS Well-Architected Framework. We then address specific best practices aligned with the five pillars of the Well-Architected Framework.

Streaming media workloads transmit audio and video from content publishers to audiences. Streaming media is typically used for one-to-many broadcasts to audiences over HTTP. Readers interested in real-time communications for web conferencing applications should refer to the Real-Time Communication on AWS whitepaper.

For brevity, we only cover details from the Well-Architected Framework that are specific to streaming media workloads. We recommend that you start by considering best practices and questions from the AWS Well-Architected Framework whitepaper when designing your architecture.