Cross-border live streaming is a key path for businesses to expand into overseas markets. Compared to local live streaming, it presents more significant technical challenges. Especially when live streaming rooms reach tens of thousands of concurrent users, server architecture stability, smooth response times, and real-time video clarity become key factors in testing the overall system design. This article details the server configuration, network bandwidth, load balancing solutions, and budgeting required for cross-border live streaming with tens of thousands of concurrent users, and discusses how to achieve optimal performance and cost.

When dealing with traffic scenarios involving tens of thousands of concurrent users, the most critical technical support lies in a powerful server cluster, not just a single high-end server. A distributed architecture is generally recommended, distributing user requests across multiple nodes. After live stream source acquisition is complete, encoding, transcoding, content distribution, and data links from the playback end to the user terminal must maintain extremely low latency. In cross-border scenarios, the geographical distribution of users directly influences network selection, making deployment region particularly important. A multi-region deployment strategy is recommended, such as deploying edge computing nodes in Singapore, Hong Kong, Tokyo, Los Angeles, and other locations to accelerate access locally.

For server configuration, it is generally recommended to use physical servers as master nodes to support high concurrent traffic. The basic configuration should include at least: dual-core Intel Xeon Gold processors, at least 128GB of DDR4 memory, a 1TB NVMe SSD, and a network environment with 1000Mbps dedicated bandwidth. For video transcoding needs, a high-performance GPU card, such as the NVIDIA A10 or L40, is also required to enhance real-time processing capabilities. For logical nodes that maintain push states via WebSocket connections, a more lightweight VPS cluster can be used, but load balancing must be enabled to handle sudden connection spikes.

At the network transport level, RTMP is the mainstream protocol for streaming, while HLS or WebRTC is used for playback. WebRTC is more suitable for livestream interactions requiring sub-second interactions. To maintain stable cross-border network connectivity, it is recommended to optimize SD-WAN or BGP to ensure network quality for users in mainland China accessing overseas nodes. This avoids playback delays, image quality issues, or severe packet loss caused by long transit paths. In extreme scenarios, dedicated lines such as IPLC can be considered to provide a stable connection to the core data center, eliminating the impact of physical path uncertainty on the livestream experience.

Let's look at the cost. For example, a dedicated server in Hong Kong or Tokyo with the above-mentioned configuration would cost between $800 and $1,200 per month, depending on bandwidth usage and the hardware customization. If you need to deploy five live source nodes, 10 streaming transcoding nodes, and 15 web distribution nodes, the initial investment would be around $15,000 to $20,000 per month. If CDN acceleration services are used, the cost is charged per TB of traffic. For example, for 100 TB per month, the cost would increase by approximately $3,000 to $5,000. If dedicated IPLC is enabled, the bandwidth starts at 10 Mbps per line, and the annual fee is typically over $10,000.

To save costs without sacrificing stability, a hybrid cloud architecture can be adopted, placing non-confidential data and fault-tolerant nodes in a public cloud environment, while retaining core data and live streaming hosts on dedicated servers or hosted environments. Deploying services with container orchestration platforms like Kubernetes allows for dynamic resource scaling during business operations, avoiding idle resources and wasted resources. The following command deploys a basic service node:

kubectl create deployment live-edge-node --image=your-custom-live-server:latest

Of course, live streaming platforms also need to implement their own protection mechanisms, especially when facing the massive number of connection requests generated by tens of thousands of people interacting online simultaneously. They must guard against DDoS attacks, CC attacks, and sudden CAPTCHA bombardments. It's recommended to use a hard firewall and deploy a WAF for application-layer protection for user access. Furthermore, reverse proxy and rate limiting policies can be configured at the service entry layer to prevent abnormal requests from a single IP address from bringing down the system. For example, the rate limiting configuration for Nginx can be set as follows:

limit_req zone=one burst=10 nodelay;

Finally, a monitoring system is essential. Using Prometheus and Grafana allows for real-time monitoring of CPU, memory, and network usage, as well as alerts for abnormal events. This allows for immediate identification of the fault point in the event of live streaming interruptions or screen freezes. For example, query the bandwidth usage of live streaming nodes using the following command:

netstat -i | grep eth0

In short, cross-border live streaming with tens of thousands of concurrent users isn't a simple matter of simply piling up hardware. It requires a comprehensive project involving global deployment strategies, server architecture optimization, network path acceleration, and cost-balanced budgets. From a server perspective, rational server selection, scientific deployment, and partnerships with professional IDC or cloud service providers are key to achieving a stable, high-quality cross-border live streaming platform.