Video conference optimization technical method and system in transparent mode
Technical Field
The invention relates to the technical field of communication related to video conferences, in particular to a video conference optimization method and system based on a transparent mode.
Background
With the continuous development of multimedia technology and digital communication technology, video conference systems have become important means for realizing real-time remote communication among multiple parties, and are one of indispensable forms in work communication, for example, many enterprises and public institutions have established video conference systems between headquarters and branches. The video conference not only improves the communication efficiency, but also reduces the communication cost.
Since the video conference is a real-time multimedia application realized based on a network communication technology, the requirements on network bandwidth, transmission delay, packet loss rate and the like are high. In practical application, considering cost factors, most of video conference systems utilize a wide area network as a carrier network for video transmission, but available bandwidth of the wide area network cannot be guaranteed, packet loss and delay phenomena often occur, and a sudden network deterioration phenomenon also exists. Because the real-time performance and the reliability of video communication cannot meet the requirements, the problems of picture mosaic, blocking, jitter and the like often occur in the video conference, and even the video link is interrupted to cause the midway stop of the conference.
The transmission optimization technology is developed for improving the efficiency and quality of data stream transmission under the condition of a wide area network, and comprises the following steps: allocating stable fixed bandwidth for data stream transmission of certain applications, and limiting the occupation of bandwidth by other office software or P2P software; setting a higher transmission priority for a specific data stream, and reducing time delay; establishing a mechanism adopting packet loss detection and retransmission to reduce the packet loss rate; the repeated control of the IP packet corrects a large amount of repeated data packets caused by packet loss and retransmission; jitter caused by unevenness of transmission delay is eliminated by buffering, and the like.
In order to solve the above problems in video conference data transmission, a current technique is to deploy transmission optimization equipment embedded with a transmission optimization technique at the local area network outlet of each participant of a video conference. However, existing transmission optimization devices need to be deployed based on routing patterns. In the routing mode, an IP address and a route need to be configured for the transmission optimization device, and meanwhile, the routing configuration of other network devices in the local area network of each participant of the video conference needs to be changed, so that the original network topology structure of the local area network is changed. This deployment approach is complicated to operate and increases the difficulty and complexity of deployment due to the need to change the routing configuration of other network devices.
On the other hand, the video data stream generated in the video conference is transmitted by adopting a UDP protocol, so that the transmission optimization equipment can only perform compensation optimization on the video data stream on the basis of the UDP protocol; this makes the transmission optimization technique based on IP packets, such as the packet loss detection retransmission, IP packet repetition control, etc. mentioned above, not well suited for the optimization of video streams using UDP protocol, and thus, the problems of mosaic, pause, and pause of video pictures due to packet loss cannot be effectively solved.
Therefore, there is a need in the art for a video conference optimization solution that simplifies the deployment and optimizes the transmission of video streams to a greater extent.
Disclosure of Invention
Aiming at the problems in the prior art, the invention provides a video conference optimization method and system based on a transparent mode. The invention deploys video transmission optimization equipment at the local area network outlet of each participant of the video conference based on the transparent mode, does not need to change the original network structure and routing configuration of the local area network, can realize accelerated optimized transmission under a TCP protocol, utilizes the TCP accelerated optimization technology to the maximum extent, and improves the guarantee of a video transmission link.
The invention provides a video conference optimization method based on a transparent mode, which is characterized by comprising the following steps:
transmitting the video stream of the video conference from the L2 layer to the L3 layer through a bridge interface at the local area network outlet of each participant of the video conference based on the deployment mode of the transparent mode;
the UDP in the video stream is encapsulated into a TCP message by using a VPN tunnel technology, and the data transmission of the VPN tunnel is accelerated by using a TCP acceleration technology;
and detecting the connectivity of the video transmission link based on a heartbeat detection technology, and switching the link under the condition that the video transmission link is not connected.
Preferably, in the deployment mode of the transparent mode, an IP address is configured only for the bridge interface, and the network configuration of the local area network of each participant of the video conference is not changed.
Preferably, the bridge interface configures the name of the bridge interface and the IP address of the video stream by ebtables under the Linux system, so as to implement the transfer of the L2 layer data stream to the L3 layer.
Preferably, the detecting connectivity of the video transmission link based on the heartbeat detection technology includes: judging whether heartbeat information sent by an opposite end of the video transmission link can be received or not, and determining whether link switching is carried out or not according to whether the heartbeat information can be received or not and the online state of the video transmission link.
It is further preferred that if the heartbeat information can be received from the video transmission link and the online status of the video transmission link is connected, the video transmission link is kept applied; or, if the heartbeat information cannot be received from the video transmission link and the online state of the video transmission link is connected, searching and switching to a standby video transmission link; or if the heartbeat information cannot be received from the video transmission link and the online state of the video transmission link is not up, the application standby video transmission link is kept; or, if the heartbeat information can be received from the video transmission link and the online state of the video transmission link is not passed, switching to the video transmission link by the standby video transmission link.
The invention also provides a video conference optimization system based on the transparent mode, which is characterized by comprising video transmission optimization equipment which is deployed at the local area network outlet of each participant of the video conference based on the deployment mode of the transparent mode, wherein the video transmission optimization equipment comprises:
a bridge interface for passing the video stream of the video conference from the L2 layer to the L3 layer;
the VPN acceleration module is used for packaging UDP in the video stream into TCP messages by using a VPN tunnel technology and accelerating data transmission of the VPN tunnel by using the TCP acceleration technology;
and the link communication detection module detects the connectivity of the video transmission link based on a heartbeat detection technology and performs link switching under the condition that the video transmission link is not communicated.
Preferably, the video transmission optimization device configures an IP address only for the bridge interface in a transparent mode of deployment, without changing network configuration of a local area network of each participant of the video conference.
Preferably, the bridge interface configures the name of the bridge interface and the IP address of the video stream by ebtables under the Linux system, so as to implement the transfer of the L2 layer data stream to the L3 layer.
Preferably, the link connectivity detecting module determines whether heartbeat information sent by an opposite end of the video transmission link can be received, and determines whether to perform link switching according to whether the heartbeat information can be received and the online state of the video transmission link.
More preferably, the link connection detection module determines that the video transmission link is kept in use if the heartbeat information can be received from the video transmission link and the online status of the video transmission link is connected; or, the link communication detection module judges whether the heartbeat information can not be received from the video transmission link and the online state of the video transmission link is connected, and searches and switches to the standby video transmission link; or, the link communication detection module judges that if the heartbeat information cannot be received from the video transmission link and the online state of the video transmission link is not up, the application standby video transmission link is kept; or, the link communication detection module judges that the standby video transmission link is switched to the video transmission link if the heartbeat information can be received from the video transmission link and the online state of the video transmission link is not up.
Thus, technical advantages of the present invention include: the method breaks through the prior method for optimizing the video conference only in the routing mode, adopts the bridge port filtering technology to realize the optimization of the video conference in the transparent mode, simplifies the network deployment and improves the network stability; the method breaks through the traditional thought of compensating and optimizing the video on the basis of UDP, innovatively uses a VPN tunnel technology to convert UDP video stream into TCP video stream, thereby converting the UDP compensation optimization problem into a TCP acceleration optimization problem and being capable of utilizing the existing TCP acceleration optimization technology to the maximum extent; the heartbeat technology is adopted to realize the communication guarantee of the video link, and the video failure rate is reduced; and the acceleration of a tunnel interface is combined with the TCP acceleration technology, so that the optimization effect of the video conference is ensured.
Drawings
FIG. 1 is a system deployment architecture of a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 2 is a schematic structural diagram of a video transmission optimization apparatus according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention;
fig. 3 is a schematic diagram of detecting connectivity of a video transmission link according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention.
Detailed Description
The technical scheme of the invention is further specifically described by the following embodiments and the accompanying drawings.
Fig. 1 is a deployment structure diagram of a video conference optimization system according to a preferred embodiment of the present invention. As can be seen from fig. 1, a video conference optimization system is constructed between a participant head office a and a branch B of a video conference. Video conference terminals 102 are arranged in the respective local area networks 101 of the headquarters a and the branches B, and video data streams using the UDP protocol are generated and transmitted by the video conference terminals. At the outlets of the local area networks 101 of the headquarters a and the parts B, video transmission optimization devices 103 embedded with video transmission optimization technology are respectively deployed based on the deployment mode of the transparent mode.
The video transmission optimization device 103 integrates the video transmission optimization function inside, and supports bridge configuration and routing configuration, and in the transparent mode, only 1 IP address needs to be configured for the bridge port of the device, and the original network structure and routing configuration of the local area network 101 do not need to be changed. The video transmission optimization device 103 transmits the video stream to be transmitted from the L2 layer to the L3 layer for processing, encapsulates the UDP of the video stream into a TCP message by using the VPN tunnel technology, and accelerates the transmission of the VPN tunnel by using the TCP acceleration technology, thereby effectively solving the problems of mosaic, pause and jitter of the video picture. Meanwhile, the video transmission optimization device 103 can also guarantee a video transmission link of the video conference, and when the transmission link of the video conference fails, the video conference can be switched to other available standby links to ensure that the video conference is not interrupted.
The transparent mode is also called bridge mode. Transparent means that the network device in this mode is transparent to the user, and the user does not perceive the existence of this network device. When the deployment mode of the transparent mode is adopted, under the general condition, the deployed network equipment is directly placed in the network without configuring IP and routing for the deployed network equipment and changing the routing configuration of other network equipment, so that the original network topology structure is not required to be changed. Compared with the routing mode deployment, the transparent mode deployment mode is much simpler. However, in the transparent mode, since IP and routing are not used, the data flow is forwarded at the L2 layer based on MAC and does not reach the L3 layer.
The video transmission optimization device 103 of the present invention is deployed at the exit of the local area network 101 in a transparent mode, so that compared with the existing transmission optimization device that must be deployed in a routing mode, simplification is achieved. In the transparent mode, only the IP address needs to be configured for the bridge interface of the video transmission optimizing device 103, and there is no need to change any configuration of the original network device of the lan 101, so that the network topology structure is not changed. In the transparent mode, the data stream can only be forwarded at L2, so that the data at the L2 layer needs to be passed to the L3 layer at the bridge interface through a bridge interface filtering technique for processing and transmission. Under a Linux system, the filtering configuration of a bridge interface can be carried out through an ebtables command, and the ebtables command can configure a bridge interface to perform packet filtering and forwarding of data between L2/L3 layers, so that the invention realizes the transmission of an L2 layer data stream in a transparent mode to an L3 layer by configuring the name of the bridge interface and the IP address of a video stream through the ebtables command. The ebtables command configuration mode of the invention is as follows:
ebtables-t broute-A BROUTING-p IPv 4-local-in br Inter-ip-dsttpp-j redirect-target ACCEPT. Where brInter is the bridge port name and dstIp is the video stream IP to be processed.
For the video stream transferred from the L2 layer to the L3 layer by using the bridge interface, since the problem that the data stream cannot reach the L3 layer in the transparent mode is solved, the video transmission optimization device 103 according to the present invention can further perform TCP acceleration by using a VPN tunnel technology, and ensure connectivity of the video transmission link by using heartbeat detection. As shown in the schematic structural diagram of the video transmission optimization apparatus in fig. 2, the video transmission optimization apparatus 103 includes the bridge port 1031, and further includes a VPN acceleration module 1032 and a link connectivity detection module 1033.
The VPN acceleration module 1032 is configured to encapsulate UDP in the video stream into a TCP packet by using a VPN tunnel technology, and accelerate data transmission in the VPN tunnel by using the TCP acceleration technology. The encapsulation into TCP messages enables both the transmitting and receiving parties of the VPN tunnel to realize reliable transmission of the data. The TCP acceleration technology is a hot spot technology for increasing data transmission speed in a wan environment, and may adopt measures including TCP processing mechanism optimization, TCP structure improvement, and the like, such as check calculation optimization, header prediction processing, congestion control improvement, packet filtering, delay hiding, and the like, which are not described herein again. The VPN tunnel technology and the TCP acceleration processing of the tunnel effectively solve the picture quality problems of mosaic, blockage, jitter and the like.
The link connectivity detection module 1033 effectively guarantees a video transmission link, and realizes fast link switching to a standby link after a transmission link fails, thereby ensuring that a conference is not interrupted. The link connectivity detecting module 1033 detects connectivity of the video transmission link based on the heartbeat detection technology, and a specific flow is shown in fig. 3. After starting, the link connectivity detecting module 1033 keeps detecting whether the heartbeat information sent by the opposite end of the video transmission link can be received in the "detecting" state of fig. 3. According to whether the heartbeat information can be received or not and the online state of the video transmission link, the following two situations exist:
(I) if in the "detection" state, the heartbeat information sent by the opposite end can be received from the video transmission link currently being detected, which indicates that the video transmission link is connected at the moment, the processing is respectively carried out according to the link online state of the video transmission link before the heartbeat information is received:
if the online state of the video transmission link is connected before the heartbeat information is received, the video transmission link is kept applied to carry out data transmission of the video conference, and the detection state in the figure 3 is returned, and the heartbeat information detection of the video transmission link is continuously executed;
if the online state of the video transmission link is not communicated before the heartbeat information is received, the fact that the video transmission link is not communicated before is shown that the video transmission is carried out by using a standby video transmission link; now that the video transmission link has been restored at this time, the video transmission link is switched back from the backup video transmission link.
(II) if the heartbeat message sent by the opposite end of the detected video transmission link is not received in the "detection" state shown in fig. 3, it indicates that the video transmission link is not available at this time; at this time, the processing is respectively carried out according to the link online state of the video transmission link before the heartbeat information is received:
if the online state of the video transmission link is not communicated before the heartbeat information detection, the video transmission link is interrupted before the heartbeat information detection, the video transmission is executed by the standby video transmission link, the standby video transmission link is continuously maintained, the detection state is returned, and next heartbeat information receiving detection is carried out.
If the online state of the video transmission link is connected before the heartbeat information detection, and the interruption occurs between the last heartbeat detection and the heartbeat detection, at the moment, other available standby links are immediately searched, and then the data transmission of the video conference is switched to the searched standby video transmission link.
Thus, technical advantages of the present invention include: the method breaks through the prior method for optimizing the video conference only in the routing mode, adopts the bridge port filtering technology to realize the optimization of the video conference in the transparent mode, simplifies the network deployment and improves the network stability; the method breaks through the traditional thought of compensating and optimizing the video on the basis of UDP, innovatively uses a VPN tunnel technology to convert UDP video stream into TCP video stream, thereby converting the UDP compensation optimization problem into a TCP acceleration optimization problem and being capable of utilizing the existing TCP acceleration optimization technology to the maximum extent; the heartbeat technology is adopted to realize the communication guarantee of the video link, and the video failure rate is reduced; and the acceleration of a tunnel interface is combined with the TCP acceleration technology, so that the optimization effect of the video conference is ensured.
The above embodiments are only for illustrating the invention and are not to be construed as limiting the invention, and those skilled in the art can make various changes and modifications without departing from the spirit and scope of the invention, therefore, all equivalent technical solutions also belong to the scope of the invention, and the scope of the invention is defined by the claims.