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In-flight Entertainment System

Simulate the in-flight entertainment network and analyse it for bottlenecks Simulate the in-flight entertainment network and analyse it for bottlenecks

The customer was testing their new system for an aircraft having a total of 48 display tablets

  • There are 3 video servers connected to an Ethernet LAN switch
  • This LAN switch connects to 6 access switches
  • Each access switch connected to 8 passenger display tablets and thus a total of 48 display tablets
  • All links have 1 Gbps links throughput
  • Video load would be split equally between all three servers

Based on the performance of this system, they expected to scale it upto 1000 display tables in their subsequent versions of the system

Traffic flow in the network

  • Server 1 to display units 11-26 through Access Switches E and F
  • Server 2 to display units 27-42 through Access Switches G and H
  • Server 3 to display units 43-58 through Access Switches I and J
  • 48 voice and 48 video applications
  • Each server handles 16 + 16 = 32 applications

Traffic load

  • Worst case scenario for simultaneous video usage by all passengers(MPEG movie model)
  • Simultaneous audio via an audio codec model

Conclusions

  • Network is able to handle the load for 48 display units
  • Link capacity is sufficient to handle traffic loads hence no buffer drops
  • Application delays(~2ms) were within generally acceptable tolerance for video
  • However a "what-if" analysis with increased switch latency led to delays beyond acceptable tolerance od 3ms