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SRT Connection Bonding: Main/Backup

I. Introduction
II. Mode Overview
III. Sender Logic
IV. Sending Algorithm

I. Introduction

SRT Main/Backup Switching mode saves contribution bandwidth by using only one (main) link at a time, while keeping a stream alive if the main link gets broken.

This feature is useful for broadcasting where the traffic costs for a main link are relatively low, and the main link is reasonably reliable. To make sure a transmission doesn’t fail, one or several backup connections are on stand-by. These backup connections ensure reliability, but the traffic costs may be high. To save costs, the backup links are only activated when the main link fails or doesn’t achieve the required throughput.

The goal of SRT's main/backup bonding mode is to identify a potential link break before it happens, thus providing a time window within which to seamlessly switch to one of the backup links.

II. Mode Overview

Mode Constraints

The main constraints of the main/backup switching mode are:

  • only one active link at a time, except when switching to one of the backup links or to a link with a higher weight;
  • seamless switching to one of the backup links ideally happens without packet drops, but dropping packets for a certain period of time is acceptable during the switch under certain circumstances (e.g. severe conditions).

Transmission happens over the main link until it is considered broken or is presumably about to become broken.

Sensitivity Levels

The only sensitivity level implemented at the moment is a pre-emptive switch to a backup path from an unstable main path before it breaks. The goal is to predict an upcoming link breakage before it happens, and to be ready to switch to an activated backup link while losing as few packets as possible.

An additional sensitivity level (handover switch) may be added in the future for cases where low latency and packet loss is not critical. The switch would take place once the link is actually broken, without trying to predict it thereby reducing processing overhead. Since the main path in this case is already broken, there would be a delay associated with activating the backup path resulting in a discontinuity in streaming (data loss during the switch).

Mode Limitations

Detecting a potential link break and switching to a backup link requires time. If the activation of the backup link happens within the SRTO_PEERLATENCY interval, there is a good chance that not a single packet will be lost. Therefore, one of the limitations (or usage guidelines) is to set SRTO_PEERLATENCY ≥ 3×RTT.

The logic of the main/backup sending algorithm is triggered each time an application submits new payload (calls srt_sendmsg2(..)). This imposes two limitations:

  • it is better to submit new packets no later than every 50 or 60 ms to trigger the logic with enough frequency (the bitrate should be > 180 kbps);
  • file transmission logic does not fit well with this algorithm, and is not supported.

III. Sender Logic

Member Link State

In addition to an individual SRT socket state (e.g. SRTS_CONNECTED, SRTS_BROKEN, etc.; see srt_getsockstate(..)), a socket member of a group has a member status (see SRT_MEMBERSTATUS). The top level member status SRT_MEMBERSTATUS is visible from the SRT API. However, SRT_GST_RUNNING member status can have sub-statuses used by the group sending algorithm.

Member link status can be:

  1. SRT_GST_PENDING. The link is visible, but the connection hasn't been established yet. The link cannot be used for data transmission yet.
  2. SRT_GST_IDLE (stand by). The link is connected and ready for data transmission, but it is not activated for actual payload transmission. KEEPALIVE control packets are being exchanged once per second.
  3. SRT_GST_RUNNING (active). The link is being used for payload transmission.
    1. Fresh-Activated. A link was freshly (newly) activated, and it is too early to qualify it as either stable or unstable.
    2. Stable. Active link is considered stable.
    3. Unstable. Active link is considered unstable, e.g. response time has exceeded some threshold.
    4. Unstable-Wary. A link was identified as unstable (e.g. no response longer than some threshold) until a new response makes it potentially stable again.
  4. SRT_GST_BROKEN. The link has just been detected to be broken. It is about to be closed and removed from the group.

Member State Transition

The initial state for group sender logic to operate on a member is once the member socket is connected and transitions to SRT_GST_IDLE.

Event \ State => q0 (GST_IDLE) q1 (Fresh-Activated) q2 (Stable) q3 (Unstable) q4 (Wary) q5 =>(Broken)
Last response < LST* x q1 q2 q4 (m_tsWarySince = now) x x
Last response >= LST* x q3 (tsUnstableSince = now) q3 (tsUnstableSince = now) x q3 x
tsUnstableSince!= 0 and (now - tsUnstableSince> PEERIDLETMO) x x x q5 q5 x
Probing period is over x q2 / tsFreshActivation = 0 x x q2 x
Activate (group decision) q1 (tsFreshActivation = now) x x x x x
Silence (group decision) x ❓ q0 x ❓ x
Close/break (external event) q5 q5 q5 q5 q5 x

Member activation happens according to conditions described in the Member Activation section. Upon activation a member transitions to the q1 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated) state.

A member in the q1 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated) state can either become q2 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable) or q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable).

Conditions to qualify a member as unstable are described in the Qualifying Member Unstable section. If the conditions are met, the member is transitioned into the q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable) state.

An Unstable member (q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable) or q4 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable-Wary)) either:

  • transition back to the q2 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable) state through the q4 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable-Wary) state;
  • transition to the q0 (SRT_GST_IDLE) state (be silenced); or
  • transition to the q5 (SRT_GST_BROKEN) state (be closed and removed from the group).

A member in the q5 (SRT_GST_BROKEN) state will eventually be closed and removed from the group.

Member Ordering by Priority

When comparing two members, one is ordered before the other depending on which of the following ordering conditions applies (in the order of priority).

  1. Higher weight (highest priority)
  2. By backup state (if equal weight):
    1. SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable
    2. SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated
    3. SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable-Wary
    4. SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable
    5. SRT_GST_BROKEN
    6. SRT_GST_IDLE (stand by)
    7. SRT_GST_PENDING
  3. By the Socket ID (lower value first).

For example, an unstable member with a higher weight is ordered before a stable member with lower weight.

Potential Improvement: Order by connection start time (older connection comes first) before comparing socket IDs.

Member Activation

Member activation means transitioning an idle (stand by) member with status SRT_GST_IDLE to a SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated state. The time it takes to activate a member is saved as tsFreshActivation = CurrentTime.

Activation is needed if one of the following is true:

  1. There are no SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable or SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated members.
  2. The weight of one of the idle members is higher than the maximum weight of SRT_GST_RUNNING links.

An idle link to be activated is taken from the top of the list of idle links, sorted according to member ordering priority.

A member remains in the SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated state while CurrentTime - tsFreshActivation > ProbingPeriod, i.e. for the whole probing period:

ProbingPeriod = ILST + 50ms

Here Initial Link Stability Timeout ILST = max(LSTmin; SRTO_PEERLATENCY),

  • LSTmin = 60ms ;
  • SRTO_PEERLATENCY is the corresponding socket option value on a connected socket.

Qualifying a Member as Unstable

A member in the active (SRT_GST_RUNNING) state can be transitioned to the q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable) state (become unstable) for any of the reasons described below.

Unstable due to response timeout

A member link is considered unstable if the time elapsed since the last response from a peer (LastRspTime) exceeds the link stability timeout:

CurrentTime - LastRspTime > LST

where

  • CurrentTime is the time when the next data packet is submitted to a group for sending;
  • LastRspTime is the time when the latest response (ACK, loss report (NAK), periodic NAK report, KEEP_ALIVE message, or DATA packet in case of bidirectional transmission) was received from the SRT receiver by the SRT sender for a member in the SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated state LastRspTime ≥ tsFreshActivation;
  • LST (Link Stability Timeout) is a dynamic value for stability timeout calculated based on the group SRT Latency and RTT estimate on a link. This value is calculated individually for each active (SRT_GST_RUNNING) link.

The link stability timeout for an active (SRT_GST_RUNNING) member (except for SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated) is calculated with each data packet submission (on srt_sendmsg2(..)).

For a member in SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated state LST = ILST (see Member Activation).

For active (SRT_GST_RUNNING) members in states different from SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated LST is calculated as follows:

LST = 2 * SRTT + 4 * RTTVar, and LSTmin ≤ LST ≤ SRTO_PEERLATENCY,

where

  • LSTmin = 60ms;
  • SRTO_PEERLATENCY is the corresponding socket option value on a connected socket;
  • SRTT and RTTVar are smoothed RTT and RTT variances calculated on an individual socket member in runtime as described in the SRT RFT Round Trip Time Estimation section.

Unstable due to sending failure

If sending a packet (srt_sendmsg2(..)) over a member SRT socket has failed with error SRT_EASYNCSND, the member is qualified as q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable).

This error indicates that there was not enough free space in the sender's buffer to accept this data packet for sending. It should not happen under normal conditions and if buffers are configured correctly this kind of error indicates some possible congestion on a path.

Unstable due to sender-side packet drops

If a member has dropped a packet (see Too-Late Packet Drop section of the Internet Draft) since the previous submission of a data packet for sending (previous call to srt_sendmsg2(..)), it transitions to the q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable) state.

Unstable due to receiver-side packet drops (TBD)

IMPORTANT: For the time being, the main backup algorithm does not react to lost packets or packets dropped by the receiver. Note that an SRT sender does not know the drop rate on the receiver's side. A receiver acknowledges packets it drops. PR #1889 extends ACK packets to include the total number of packets dropped by the receiver.

Qualifying a Member as Broken

Broken due to peer idle timeout

Similar to a single SRT connection, a member SRT socket is considered broken if there has been no response from a peer for a certain time, defined by the SRTO_PEERIDLETIMEO socket option (5 seconds by default). A broken socket will be closed by the SRT library. It is also removed from a group.

Broken due to remaining unstable for too long

The only additional condition to break an SRT connection from a group is if a member remains unstable for too long. A group can request a socket member to break its connection if the time elapsed since the socket has become unstable (tsUnstableSince) exceeds the timeout defined by the SRTO_PEERIDLETIMEO socket option:

CurrentTime - tsUnstableSince > SRTO_PEERIDLETIMEO.

Qualifying a Member as Stable

Only a member SRT socket in the active (SRT_GST_RUNNING) state can be qualified as stable.

Freshly-activated becomes stable

A freshly activated member SRT socket (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Fresh-Activated) is qualified as stable (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable) once the probing period ProbingPeriod is over (unless it has already been qualified as unstable). The probing period is defined in the Member Activation section.

Unstable becomes stable

If there is no longer a reason to qualify a member as unstable (see Qualifying a Member as Unstable) it can transition to the stable state. A member in the q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable) state transitions immediately to the q4 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable-Wary) state. The time of the transition event is saved as tsWarySince = CurrentTime.

If a member remains in the q4 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable-Wary) state for 4 × SRTO_PEERLATENCY, it can transition to the SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable state.

Note that if a member becomes unstable q3 (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Unstable) again, the tsWarySince time will be reset on the next transition to the Unstable-Wary state.

Silencing an Active Member

There must be only one stable (SRT_GST_RUNNING: Stable) member SRT socket active in a group. There may be several active unstable or fresh activated sockets in a group. However, if more than one member is qualified as stable, only one must remain active.

In order to select a stable member to remain active the Member Ordering by Priority is applied. All active members ordered after the first stable member are silenced. All active members ordered before the first stable member in the list, including the stable member, remain active.

IV. Sending Algorithm

The group sending workflow is triggered by a submission of the following data packet via the srt_sendmsg(..) SRT API function. The following steps apply in order.

1. Qualify Member States

Before sending a packet, all member links are qualified according to the states described above.

2. Sending the Same Packet over Active Links

The same data packet is sent (duplicated) over all members qualified as active (SRT_GST_RUNNING).

If sending fails, the link is re-qualified as unstable as described in the Unstable by Sending Failure section.

3. Save the Packet Being Sent to the Group SND Buffer

The group has a separate buffer for packets being sent and to be acknowledged. If a member socket gets broken, those packets can be resent over a freshly-activated backup member.

4. Check if Backup Link Activation is Needed

See the Member Activation section.

5. [IF] Activate Idle Link

If a member is activated, all buffered packets (see step 3) are submitted to this SRT member socket. If sending fails (see the Unstable by Sending Failure section), another member is activated by following the logic described in the Member Activation section.

6. Check Pending and Broken Sockets

Check if there are pending sockets that failed to connect, and should be removed from the group.

Check if there are broken sockets to be removed from the group.

Check if there are member socket unstable for too long that should be requested to transition to the broken state.

7. Wait for Sending Success

There may be a situation where no sending has succeeded, but there are active members.

If the group is in non-blocking operation mode, the group returns SRT_EASYNCSND error.

If the group is in blocking operation mode, sending over active members is retried until the sending timeout SRTO_SNDTIMEO is reached (SRT_EASYNCSND error is returned), or at least one member successfully accepts a data packet for sending.

8. Silence Redundant Members

The rules described in the Silencing an Active Member section are applied in this step.