Cadami’s Distributed Storage Transforms Inseat IFE Systems into Powerful Edge CDN Nodes

We’re thrilled to share some exciting news from Cadami! This year at the Aircraft Interiors Expo (AIX) 2024 in Hamburg, we showcase our latest content distribution and storage technology innovation.

Unlocking the Power of Distributed Storage

At Cadami, we’ve developed a robust and efficient distributed storage system that aggregates the storage of all seats in an aircraft cabin. This technology creates a massive, reliable storage network with up to 100 TB capacity. Imagine the potential of this storage not just for licensed in-flight entertainment (IFE) content, but as a powerful CDN cache node for various applications!

We’re bringing a CDN edge node directly into the aircraft cabin by partnering with picoNETS and leveraging their Deep Edge Caching solution, compliant with SVTA’s OpenCaching standard. This means faster, more reliable access to content for passengers, and a significant reduction in reliance on costly satellite links.

Why This Matters

While distributed storage solutions are well-established in cloud computing, they often fall short in addressing the unique hardware and network requirements of in-flight entertainment (IFE) systems. At Cadami, we have tailored our storage solution to meet these specific needs, offering several key benefits:

Resilience: Our system ensures reliable data retrieval even if some seats disconnect.

Scalability: We balance the load to satisfy all passenger requests while respecting networking and computing limits.

Extensibility: Our system provides object storage for any cloud-based or data center application within the onboard data center.

A Real-World Example: Deep Edge Content Caching

One of the biggest challenges with current aircraft internet connections is supporting OTT services for all passengers. Our onboard storage solution addresses this by serving as a deep edge cache node for OTT services. This ensures high availability and performance while keeping backhaul link traffic manageable and affordable. picoNETS’ Deep Edge Caching and CDN solution, combined with our storage technology, enables seamless integration with existing and future IFE/C systems.

See It in Action at AIX 2024

We’d love for you to join us at booth 4B01 at AIX 2024 to see our technology in action. We’ll be conducting live demonstrations to show how our OpenCaching solution works within an aircraft cabin environment using picoNETS’ technology. It’s a great opportunity to discuss the technical details and benefits with our experts.

Hear from Our CEO

“We are excited to demonstrate our Distributed Storage Solution and picoNETS’ OpenCaching solution to the aviation industry,” said Andreas Dotzler, CEO of Cadami. “This highlights our commitment to improving the passenger experience through advanced technology.”

About Cadami

Since 2017, Cadami has been at the forefront of delivering high-quality multimedia content to more users without the need for hardware updates. Our solutions are already deployed on over 500 aircraft, and we’ve been featured at AIX in 2018, 2019, and 2023. This year, our focus is on showcasing our innovative Distributed Coded Caching technology, which transforms the cabin into an in-seat data center. By partnering with picoNETS and their OpenCaching solution, we’re showing how an aircraft can become a CDN edge node, helping airlines integrate new services and reduce IFC costs.

About picoNETS

picoNETS is a Deep Edge CDN (Content Delivery Network) startup. picoNETS works with leading content partners for an unmatched experience by providing zero buffering and ultra-low latency. picoNETS can deliver 4K Ultra HD, 8K, VR, and AR seamlessly. Applications can also run on the picoNETS platform’s distributed nodes, thereby improving the QoS (Quality of Service). picoNETS works with leading carriers and ISPs worldwide to deliver a superior experience for their users and reduce their backhaul and transit traffic. picoNETS engineers are continually innovating and developing solutions to enhance Internet Experiences.

Come visit us at AIX 2024 to learn more!

Feel free to reach out if you have any questions or want to learn more about our solutions. We’re always here to help!

Looking forward to seeing you at AIX 2024!

#AIX2024 #Cadami #InFlightEntertainment #EdgeComputing #CDN #DistributedStorage #AviationInnovation #picoNETS

CADAMI AT AIX2023

CADAMI AT AIX2023

The world of aviation is constantly evolving, with various technological advancements. As passenger in-flight entertainment continues to grow rapidly, Cadami unveiled its new technology at the just concluded AIX 2023. This innovation delivers video-on-demand to all seats simultaneously at their maximum data rate.

As an exhibitor, Cadami has featured in the 2018, 2019, and 2023 editions of the event. 

Let’s delve into what we offered at the AIX 2023.

The Cadami Solution: Onboard-Data Center and Storage-as-a-Service

Cadami transforms IFE/C hardware into an onboard data center, allowing flexible software execution and distribution across the aircraft’s computer network. With modern container and orchestration technologies, it supports various applications like IFE video streaming, Open Caching, and machine learning. Cadami optimizes resource sharing (computing, network, storage) across interconnected systems in the aircraft. One notable feature is Storage-as-a-Service, providing 1000 TB storage capacity across IFE screens and servers, ensuring reliability during failures of nodes, storage, or network.

Cadami’s service provides IFE and IFC networking solutions using highly efficient media content storage and distribution technology. Our software allows airlines to provide a huge library of high-quality multimedia content to more users without updating their hardware. Our proven technology is already flying on nearly 500 aircraft, improving the passenger experience

The demand for seamless connectivity in the sky has grown exponentially in recent years. Cadami, in partnership with aeroLiFi showcased advancements in onboard Wi-Fi/LiFi connectivity solutions. The companies presented Hybrid LiFi and WiFi solutions at the show. An innovative technology that merges traditional WiFi with LiFi, a system that enables the transfer of data using light.

Our pioneering technology combines high-speed data transmission of LiFi and the ubiquitous coverage of WiFi. It is transforming the way streaming and connectivity are experienced in the airline industry.

Our solution provides seamless integration and interchangeability between the two technologies. In case one connection fails, the other takes over without any disruption or disconnection. This guarantees passengers an uninterrupted experience of high-quality entertainment during their flight.

This year’s aircraft Interiors exhibition provided a platform for Cadami to collaborate and forge new synergy with yet another innovative leader in the Content Delivery Network industry. picoNETS’ Deep Edge CDN provides zero buffering and ultra-low latency. The application is designed to improve delivery of web content to end-users by minimizing latency and reducing the usage of bandwidth. The technology is achieved by storing cached content in the distributed edge server.

The Cadami technology provided an enlightening experience, offering a glimpse into the future of aircraft in-flight entertainment. As the aviation industry continues to grow, this event served as a catalyst for collaboration and innovation, paving the way for a new era of passenger-centric travel experiences. Cadami is poised for a new future in the aircraft entertainment industry.

Multicast ABR and Coded Caching

In this article, we give a brief overview about two media content distribution protocols that rely on multicasting: Multicast ABR (MABR) and Coded Caching. While MABR will be the standard technology for bandwidth-efficient livestreaming over multicast networks, Coded Caching can offer similar benefits for video-on-demand traffic.

MABR stands for Multicast Adaptive BitRate, hence it combines two major technologies in content distribution that have so far rarely be used jointly: multicasting and adaptive bitrate video transmission.

With adaptive streaming (such as HLS or DASH), video clients adapt their requested video bitrate (and hence quality) to the bandwidth offered by the communication channel. Because it relies on HTTP, it integrates extremely well into the architecture of the web. For broadcast communication channels and popular live streams, individual (unicast) transmission does not scale well. MABR combines those advantages of adaptive streaming with the efficiency of multicast transmission for live streams: It integrates well into the web architecture, but transmits each pieve of content only once per link. Compared to unicast, this can be tremendously more efficient.

Multicasting and video-on-demand? Coded Caching

The bandwidth savings with Multicast ABR are intuitive for live video. But can multicasting reduce the network load of individual video-on-demand services? The two apparent ideas are:

  • Pre-caching of popular content via multicast  
  • Bundling of simultaneous requests in a multicast data carousel

Coded Caching is the most efficient combination of both, caches at the receivers and coded multicast transmission. A tutorial on Coded Caching technology is available at https://cadami.net/coded-caching-blog/

Coded caching and Multicast ABR share the same architecture: Content Origin, Multicast Server, IP Multicast Network, Multicast Client, Video Clients. To upgrade MulticastABR deployments to video-on-demand by Coded Caching, we need additional components: 

  • storage at the client
  • computational power to encode/decode the data stream

The content origin and the Coded Caching server can be the same node, co-located, or separated. The same applies to the Coded Caching Client and the video client, such as a set-top box. Coded Caching can be used across all network hierarchies and supports all kinds of multicast networks, such as operator networks, broadband, satellite, or cellular (FeMBMS) networks.

Potential gains are illustrated in the following case study.

Case Study – CDN Origin Server and Edge Nodes

Coded Caching is the optimal tradeoff between storage size at the client and traffic emitted by the server. What does this mean? Let us illustrate this with an example scenario with the following parameters: 

  • C=50 Clients,
  • F=200 titles in the video-on-demand library, 
  • and a request probability, such that a request of the most popular file is n times more likely than a request for the n-th most popular file. 

Coded Caching outperforms popularity caching on the full trade-off curve. We highlight one operation point: Coded Caching reduces traffic by 66% by storing the equivalent of 5 titles only. As a comparison, caching the five most popular titles creates twice as much server traffic. Coded caching is exceptionally efficient with storage – to reduce traffic to the same level, popularity caching needs five times the storage.

Coded Caching benefits both the popular content and long-tail content. For each content title, Cadami’s Coded Caching algorithm selects a fraction of the title stored in the client cache. This fraction depends on the content’s popularity, and the so-called Coded Caching gain G. The server emits 1/G of the unicast traffic, and the storage size for this title on every client is a fraction of (G-1)/C of the file, where C is the number of clients. Conventional caching is G=∞, with the title stored completely and no traffic. G=1 implies no storage but 100% traffic when downloading the title. Let us explore a detailed breakdown of the highlighted operation point:

Coded Caching Gain321Total
Files (ranked by popularity)12-5051-152153-200200
Cache Storage per File100%4%2%0%
Total Storage in Files11.962.0405
Total Traffic (vs. No Caching)019.6%9.4%4.7%33.7%

Coded Caching is the extension to video-on-demand services for Multicast ABR

Coded Caching converts network traffic generated by video-on-demand services to multicast. Coded caching and MulticastABR share a similar architecture. Coded Caching presents itself as an intuitive extension from linear live TV to video-on-demand services for MulticastABR. Coded Caching has proven itself in 300+ commercial deployments for video distribution in aircraft. Implementations are available for various operating systems, for example, Linux and Android, and hosting options, such as running servers in the cloud and clients on embedded hardware. Cadami is looking for partnerships with organizations engaged in Multicast ABR standardization and commercialization to discuss options for integration of Coded Caching. If you are interested in learning more about Coded Caching and engaging in a conversation, please get in touch.

Coded Caching

Cadami offers a software implementation of Coded Caching for commercial applications. Coded Caching uses a combination of caches at the receivers and coded broadcast transmission. The following example illustrates an application.

A video-on-demand service offers a library containing a yellow, an orange, and a blue video. The three users request videos represented by the colors of their screens. Each user has one video in his cache (colored file in the top
row of their user’s cloud) and is missing the other two videos
(gray files in the top row of the user’s cloud). Conventional unicast streaming without caches at the users has to transmit three videos. With caches at the users, the amount of data to transmit is reduced by the cache hit rate. In our example, user 3 has a cache hit for the orange video. Instead of three, only two videos are transmitted. For the remaining two users the cache is missed and thus provides no benefit.

We can further exploit the caches at the users by coding and broadcast transmission. Upon receiving the requests for the yellow and blue video, the server combines both and serves them with one coded broadcast transmission. The server combines the yellow video and the blue video by applying a bit-wise XOR operation to generate a green file X = A ⊕ B. File X has the same size as A and B and not the size of A plus the size of B. The server broadcasts the green file X to both users in a single transmission. The yellow user feeds both its received file X and the blue video from its cache into the decoder. The decoder returns the requested yellow file A by computing B ⊕ X = B ⊕ (A ⊕ B) = A. Similarly, the blue user computes A ⊕ X = A ⊕ (A ⊕ B) = B from its received file X and the yellow video A from its cache. By Coded Caching both users to retrieve their desired content from a single broadcast stream. For this example, we require the transmission of one file, while conventional caching requires two files, and streaming without caches three files.

Generalization

The example illustrates how the combination of caching, broadcast transmission, and coding can save a significant amount of resources for video-on-demand delivery. Coded Caching generalizes these gains to general libraries, user populations, and arbitrary user requests. The video files in the library are chopped up into sufficiently small pieces. Each user stores its unique systematic selection of pieces of each file. The design of the cache is vital for achieving gains in resource reduction. For example, consider a system with five files (A yellow, B blue, C orange, D gray, E red) and four users (left-to-right: S, T, U, V ) where each user stores 50% of each file, as shown in the figure.

As soon as every user requests a file as indicated by the colors of the device screens, that is S → A, T → B, U → C, V → D, only the missing parts of the requested files need to be transmitted. Additionally, the server can code together 3 missing parts in each transmission. That is, it transmits

X1 = A2 ⊕ C3 ⊕ D6
X2 = A4 ⊕ B6 ⊕ C1
X3 = A5 ⊕ B3 ⊕ D1
X4 = B2 ⊕ C5 ⊕ D4

using four broadcast transmissions. For example, user S decodes its missing file part A2 from the received X1 and C1 and D3 from the cache as A2 = X1 ⊕ C3 ⊕ D6. With Coded Caching, we require the transmission of four pieces, while conventional caching requires 12 pieces, and streaming without caches 24 pieces. One can verify, that any user request can be satisfied by transmitting four pieces.

In case you want to learn more about the theory of Coded Caching, we recommend “Fundamental Limits of Caching” by Mohammad Ali Maddah-Ali and Urs Niesen. If you would like an analysis if your application can benefit from Coded Caching, contact us at sales@cadami.net or use the form:

AIX – Media Coverage

We had a great time at AIX 2019. We met old friends and met new ones, and we introduced our technology to some of the journalists there.

click here will take you to the articles so you can see what the experts have been saying about our technology

FIRST VIABLE CABIN WIFI NETWORK LAUNCHED BY CADAMI

Advanced network technology solutions remove barriers to wireless distribution of high-quality IFE content

Aircraft Interiors Expo, Hamburg, 2 April 2019 – Cadami is launching its WiFi cabin technology at Aircraft Interiors. There are significant benefits to using a wireless network. However, current WiFi technology has limited utility because the aircraft cabin is a crowded environment, making it very hard to provide the right bandwidth to transmit high quality content. 

Thomas Kuehn, managing director of Cadami, said, “Wireless transmission of high-quality IFE content has always been just out of reach. Our network technology solutions make it viable.”

Cadami’s network technology solutions give airlines and their IFEC partners all the benefits of using a WiFi network. It is cheaper to install and maintain than a cabled network. Because it uses less cabling, it saves weight. And the network technology solutions make the transmission of a huge library of high-quality content, to both seat back screens and passenger devices, efficient and reliable.

Thomas Kuehn continued, “Our technology is already flying on nearly 200 aircraft, operating over cabled networks and giving passengers around the world access to thousands of films. The next stage is to start WiFi. Using Efficient Coded Caching, we can both overcome the current WiFi limitations while providing the same libraries people are used to with Netflix and Amazon Prime.”

Efficient Coded Caching is a unique, patented combination of the latest coded caching with advanced transmission techniques to make highly efficient use of the network infrastructure and seat-back screens. The result is to effectively increase bandwidth by a factor of between two and five. It means an airline can viably use a WiFi network to make a large library of HD and 4K video content available to every passenger on the biggest aircraft, without jeopardising quality. 

Thomas Kuehn concluded, “We are constantly pushing the boundaries of what technology can do, to provide airlines with more efficient solutions and their passengers with an even better experience.”

Cadami is showing its technology at the Aircraft Interiors Expo at booth 4A04 in the IFEC Zone.

Aircraft Interiors – wireless IFE

Even though there are significant benefits to using a wireless network, the wireless transmission of high-quality IFE content has always been just out of reach. The Cadami network technology solutions make it viable.

We’re going to Aircraft Interiors Expo in Hamburg, from 2-5 April, where we’ll be launching our new WiFi cabin technology.

It is cheaper to install and maintain than a cabled network. Because it uses less cabling, it saves weight. And our Efficient Coded Caching technology solutions make the transmission of a huge library of high-quality content, to both seat back screens and passenger devices, efficient and reliable.

Come and see for yourself on booth 4A04 in the IFEC Zone. We look forward to seeing you there.


CADAMI SUPPORTS IEEE 5G SUMMIT

MUNICH, 25 September 2018– Cadami used the IEEE 5G Summit in Dresden in September both to highlight its highly efficient video distribution technology and secure new cooperative deals with both industrial and academic partners.

At IEEE, Cadami was showing the latest platform, developed with Steinwurf ApS. This new generation platform is easier for network owners to deploy. It also provides improved Video on Demand and video streaming quality. 

Cadami, one of the event’s Silver Patrons, demonstrated its advanced coded caching and media transmission technology. It optimises the use of the network, reducing bandwidth usage by 50 to 80 percent. These efficiency savings enable the transmission of a significantly larger library of video content, as well as increased internet capacity.

Michael Heindlmaier of Cadami said, “The IEEE 5G Summit was a very useful day for us. We started out as academics bringing an industrial idea to market, so having the combination of both worlds under one roof is very important, both for us and for the development of 5G technologies. Apart from anything else, it balances what is technologically doable with what is commercially viable.

“The result is that we were able to strengthen our relationships with the world of academia, ensuring we are fully up-to-date with all the latest developments. We also closed agreements to co-operate with other companies on the development of new products and solutions.”

Steinwurf, a Danish software company, specialises in network coding, complimenting Cadami’s technology.


This screenshot shows four screens, all running over the same network. However, the top two are running Cadami software. Click on the image to see the video.