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Akamai CDN Integration Guide

This document describes how to apply Forensic Watermarking embedding with Akamai CDN which is pre-integrated with DoveRunner FWM.

Integration Workflow

Section titled “Integration Workflow”
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sequenceDiagram
  autonumber
  participant Player as Client Player
  participant CMS as Service Backend (CMS)
  participant DRSM as DoveRunner Session Manager
  participant Akamai as Akamai Edge
  participant Origin as Origin Server

  Note over CMS,DRSM: 1) Request a watermarked stream URL
  CMS->>DRSM: Request watermarked stream URL
Stream info
Session data (User ID, IP, Timestamp)
  DRSM->>DRSM: Store session data
  DRSM->>DRSM: Generate Watermark Token (WMT)

  Note over DRSM,CMS: 2) Return stream URL with WMT (VPC)
  DRSM-->>CMS: Watermarked stream URL
(WMT embedded as Virtual Path Component)

  Note over CMS,Player: 3) Provide URL to start playback
  CMS-->>Player: Stream URL including WMT

  Note over Player,Akamai: 4) Playback and watermark embedding at edge
  Player->>Akamai: Request stream segments (URL includes WMT)
  Akamai->>Akamai: Decode WMT / watermarking pattern
  Akamai->>Origin: Fetch A/B variant segments
  Origin-->>Akamai: A/B variant segments
  Akamai-->>Player: Mixed watermark-embedded stream segments

  Note over Player: Client plays stream normally

Watermarked Session Flow with DoveRunner

  1. Send session data to DoveRunner Session Manager

During player configuration, the service backend (CMS) requests a watermarked stream URL from the DoveRunner Session Manager using the Session Manager API.

This request includes:

  • Stream information
  • Client session details such as user ID, IP address, and timestamp
  1. Store session data and generate watermark token
  • The DoveRunner Session Manager securely stores the received session data and generates a Watermark Token (WMT) associated with that session.
  1. Generate a stream URL with the watermark token
  • The Session Manager creates the watermarked stream URL by including the WMT as a virtual path component (VPC) of the stream.
  • Please refer to this guide from Akamai for more details.
  1. Provide the watermarked stream URL to the client player
  • The watermarked stream URL (including the WMT) is returned to the service backend and then passed to the client player to initiate playback.
  1. Watermark embedding and playback
  • At playback time, the Akamai edge dynamically mixes A/B variant streams from the origin server based on the watermarking pattern encoded in the WMT.
  • The client player plays the watermark-embedded stream exactly like a standard, non-watermarked stream, with no impact on playback behavior or user experience.

Akamai CDN Integration Process

Section titled “Akamai CDN Integration Process”

If you use Akamai CDN for content delivery, you can utilize the pre-integrated Akamai Adaptive Media Delivery interface with DoveRunner Forensic Watermarking or utilize the new Edge Worker service

Procedure for Akamai Adaptive Media Delivery (AMD):

  1. Ask to your Akamai account representative to get the watermarking behavior added to your contract.

  2. Contact DoveRunner team to get the token signing and pattern encryption values required for the below configuration.

  3. Add the watermarking behavior in your Akamai property configuration as described here.

Procedure for Akamai EdgeWorkers :

  1. Akamai Edge worker supports Javascript execution similar to AWS Lambda Edge.

  2. Please refer to this link and sample code

  3. You may use the Doverunner sample code available at this link