HD recording and broadcasting servers need to carry out real-time acquisition, encoding, storage, live broadcast and on-demand functions of HD or ultra-HD (1080p, 4K) videos, which places extremely high demands on performance, stability and manageability. The server must not only have sufficient CPU/GPU computing power, memory and I/O bandwidth, but also be equipped with reliable large-capacity storage and multi-channel network structure, and at the software level, it must achieve efficient video processing and intelligent scheduling to ensure data security and compliance.

The first condition for HD recording and broadcasting servers is to have computing performance and network bandwidth sufficient to support multi-channel HD video encoding and concurrent traffic.

The CPU uses at least 16-core or more server-level processors (such as Intel Xeon Gold series, AMD EPYC series) to support multi-channel 1080p/4K H.264 or H.265 encoding tasks running in parallel. For scenarios that require real-time transcoding, AI face recognition, bullet screen rendering, etc., it is recommended to be equipped with NVIDIA T4, A10 or higher accelerator cards, which can significantly improve video transcoding throughput and reduce CPU load.

It is recommended to configure 64GB or more of DDR4/DDR5 memory to meet the needs of high concurrent data buffering and instantaneous memory usage during parallel transcoding.

The network interface is equipped with at least dual 10GbE network ports to distinguish between management/live streaming and storage/backhaul traffic, which can avoid jitter or frame loss caused by single-port congestion.

The main storage uses enterprise-level SSD or NVMe hard disk, starting at at least 2TB, to ensure high random read and write performance to support multi-channel concurrent writing and virtual slice playback. Combined with RAID 6 or RAID 10 arrays, disk-level redundancy and automatic fault recovery are achieved to avoid data loss caused by single disk failure.

The expansion capacity requires SAS/SATA interfaces and M.2 slots to be reserved for future capacity expansion or hot and cold tiered storage solutions.

Network and transmission protocol

High-definition recording and broadcasting rely on highly reliable and low-latency network transmission, especially in live broadcast scenarios, which have more stringent requirements on protocols and bandwidth.

The protocol supports RTSP/RTP/RTCP standard streaming media transmission protocols to achieve real-time control and QoS monitoring. There are also mainstream protocols such as RTMP/HLS for CDN streaming and browser playback, which need to support multi-channel RTMP streaming and HLS fragment encapsulation and distribution. WebRTC is used for ultra-low latency interactive scenarios, and the server needs to integrate SFU or MCU forwarding components.

Bandwidth and QoS

The uplink bandwidth is at least 1Gbps exclusive uplink bandwidth, supporting multi-channel 1080p live broadcast; during peak hours, it can be expanded on demand or connected to CDN for distribution. The QoS strategy uses technologies such as DiffServ and VLAN to distinguish between live streaming and management streaming, realize business traffic priority scheduling, and avoid affecting system stability due to occupying the management network.

CDN and edge distribution

Local CDN access is connected to mainstream CDN, reducing dependence on source station bandwidth and enhancing cross-regional distribution capabilities. Edge cache caches video slices at edge nodes, shortens the audience's streaming delay and disperses the pressure on the source station.

Storage and backup strategy

Recorded files are usually huge in size and need to be stored for a long time. The storage system must take into account performance, capacity and reliability.

Storage tiering

Hot data storage uses SSD for real-time recording and slicing storage to ensure write performance. Cold data archiving regularly archives expired or infrequently accessed videos to HDD arrays or object storage, such as Ceph and OBS, to reduce costs.

Backup and disaster recovery. After the local backup recording is completed, it is automatically synchronized to the backup server or NAS, and the snapshot function is enabled. Remote disaster recovery combines remote dedicated lines or cloud backup to copy key data to remote computer rooms to achieve disaster recovery capabilities.

Metadata index recording and broadcasting systems in data management need to provide complete metadata management, including recording time, channel, tags, etc., to facilitate retrieval and secondary editing. Automatic cleanup strategies automatically clean up qualified historical recording and broadcasting files according to storage strategies and business needs to ensure sufficient storage space.

Software and management platform

In addition to hardware, high-definition recording and broadcasting servers must be equipped with a fully functional recording and broadcasting management platform to achieve task scheduling, monitoring alarms and permission control.

Recording and broadcasting management system

The Web control interface provides intuitive recording and broadcasting task creation, recording status monitoring, live streaming management and on-demand service management. API calls support RESTful or SDK interfaces, which are convenient for docking with the teaching system, conference system or enterprise portal to achieve an integrated automated process.

Monitoring and Alarm

Performance monitoring uses tools such as Prometheus+Grafana to monitor CPU/GPU usage, memory usage, network bandwidth, disk I/O and other indicators in real time. Abnormal alarms configure multi-channel alarms such as email, SMS, WeChat, etc., and respond to recording failures, full storage, network packet loss and other faults in a timely manner.

Users and Permissions

Multi-level permission management supports three levels of roles: administrator, operator, and ordinary user, and assigns recording, playback, download and other permissions according to roles. Audit logs record all operations and access logs to meet compliance audit and security traceability requirements.

Security and Compliance

Recording data often involves sensitive meetings, teaching or business content, and server security and compliance are essential.

Network Security

DDoS protection is mainly combined with high-defense IP or cloud cleaning services to ensure business availability during violent traffic attacks. Firewalls and WAF deploy network firewalls and Web application firewalls to prevent malicious intrusions, script attacks and hotlinks.

Data encryption

The live streaming and management interface should use TLS/SSL encryption to ensure the confidentiality of data during transmission. The recorded files should be encrypted and stored at the AES-256 level, and the keys should be managed securely.

Compliance requirements

According to domestic IDC policies, ensure that the server and business system have completed ICP filing and comply with relevant regulations of the audio-visual industry. When processing recordings, GDPR, national cybersecurity laws, etc. must be complied with, and necessary desensitization or encrypted storage of content involving personal portraits and privacy must be performed.

Operation and optimization points

Apply operating system and recording software patches in a timely manner, taking into account new features and security, estimating storage growth curves based on historical recording volumes, expanding capacity or adjusting storage strategies in advance, and optimizing recording parameters (encoding bit rate, GOP length, etc.) based on monitoring data, taking into account bandwidth and CPU usage.

Log analysis: Use platforms such as ELK or Splunk to centrally manage logs, analyze abnormal patterns based on logs, and continuously improve.

The above summarizes the core requirements and practical suggestions for high-definition recording and broadcasting server performance hardware, network transmission, storage management, software platform, security compliance, and operation and maintenance optimization. Enterprise users can build a high-quality, highly stable, and easy-to-operate recording and broadcasting service system based on this to ensure continuous and stable business operation and high-quality user experience.