11266138
Proxy cache management for fine-grained scalable video streaming
Caching video objects at proxies close to clients has attracted a lot of attention in recent years. To meet diverse client bandwidth conditions, there have been research efforts to combine proxy caching with video layering or transcoding. Nevertheless, these adaptive systems suffer from either coarse adaptation granularity due to the inflexible structures of existing layered coders or high computation overhead due to the transcoding operations. In this paper, we propose a novel adaptive video caching framework that enables low-cost and fine-grained adaptation. The innovative approach employs the MPEG-4 fine-grained scalable (FGS) video with postencoding rate control. We demonstrate that the proposed framework is both network aware and media adaptive: clients can be of heterogeneous streaming rates, and the backbone bandwidth consumption can be adaptively controlled. We also examine the design and management issues in the framework, in particular, the optimal stream portions to cache and the optimal streaming rate to each client. Simulation results demonstrate that, compared to nonadaptive caching, the proposed framework with optimal cache management not only achieves significant reduction on transmission costs but also enables flexible utility assignment for the heterogeneous clients. Meanwhile, its computational overhead is kept at a low level, implying that it is practically deployable
7789260
Optimal stream replication for video simulcasting
Video simulcasting enables a sender to generate replicated streams of different rates, serving receivers of diverse access bandwidths. As replication introduces noticeable redundancy, balancing bandwidth consumption with user satisfaction becomes a critical concern in simulcasting. This paper investigates the above issue; more explicitly, we seek answers to the following two questions: what is the number of streams that should be generated, and what is the bandwidth that should be allocated to each stream? We derive optimal and efficient solutions, and evaluate their performance under a variety of configurations. The results demonstrate that an optimal and adaptive bandwidth allocation significantly improves user satisfaction under stringent resource constraints, and an optimal choice of the stream number yields further improvements.
18232832
Tree-assisted gossiping for overlay video distribution
Given its readily deployable nature and broad applications for digital entertainment, video streaming through overlay networks has received much attention recently. While a tree topology is often advocated due to its scalability, it suffers from discontinuous playback under highly dynamic network environments. For on-demand streaming, the asynchronicity among client requests further aggravates the problem. On the other hand, gossip protocols using random message dissemination, though robust, fail to meet the real-time constraints for streaming applications. In this paper, we propose TAG, a Tree-Assisted Gossip protocol that addresses the above issues. TAG adopts a tree structure with time indexing to accommodate asynchronous requests, and an efficient pull-based gossip algorithm to mitigate the impact of network dynamicity. It seamlessly integrates these two approaches and realizes their best features, namely, low delay with a regular tree topology, and robust delivery with smart switching among multiple paths, thus making effective use of the available bandwidth in the network. We evaluate the performance of TAG under various settings, and the results demonstrate that it is quite robust in the presence of local and global bandwidth fluctuations. As compared to pure tree-based overlay VOD system, it achieves much lower and stable segment missing rates, even under highly dynamic network conditions.
14992487
COPACC: An Architecture of Cooperative Proxy-Client Caching System for On-Demand Media Streaming
Proxy caching is a key technique to reduce transmission cost for on-demand multimedia streaming. The effectiveness of current caching schemes, however, is limited by the insufficient storage space and weak cooperation among proxies and their clients, particularly considering the high bandwidth demands from media objects. In this paper, we propose COPACC, a cooperative proxy-and-client caching system that addresses the above deficiencies. This innovative approach combines the advantages of both proxy caching and peer-to-peer client communications. It leverages the client-side caching to amplify the aggregated cache space and rely on dedicated proxies to effectively coordinate the communications. We propose a comprehensive suite of distributed protocols to facilitate the interactions among different network entities in COPACC. It also realizes a smart and cost-effective cache indexing, searching, and verifying scheme. Furthermore, we develop an efficient cache allocation algorithm for distributing video segments among the proxies and clients. The algorithm not only minimizes the aggregated transmission cost of the whole system, but also accommodates heterogeneous computation and storage constraints of proxies and clients. We have extensively evaluated the performance of COPACC under various network and end-system configurations. The results demonstrate that it achieves remarkably lower transmission cost as compared to pure proxy-based caching with limited storage space. On the other hand, it is much more robust than a pure peer-to-peer communication system in the presence of node failures. Meanwhile, its computation and control overheads are both kept in low levels
14806639
A unified framework for resource discovery and QoS-aware provider selection in ad hoc networks
With the rising popularity of network-based applications and the potential use of mobile ad hoc networks in civilian life, an efficient resource discovery service is needed in such networks for quickly locating resource providers. In addition, to improve user experience, QoS awareness is also crucial. In this paper, we identify the challenges when basic resource discovery techniques for the Internet are used in mobile ad hoc networks. We then propose a framework that provides a unified solution to the discovery of resources and QoS-aware selection of resource providers. The key entities of this framework are a set of self-organized discovery agents. These agents manage the directory information of resources using hash indexing. They also dynamically partition the network into domains and collect intra- and inter-domain QoS information to select appropriate providers. Simulation results show that our framework improves the QoS delivered to the clients, while the cost and response time are kept at a low level.
12033351
mTreebone: A Hybrid Tree/Mesh Overlay for Application-Layer Live Video Multicast
Application-layer overlay networks have recently emerged as a promising solution for live media multicast on the Internet. A tree is probably the most natural structure for a multicast overlay, but is vulnerable in the presence of dynamic end-hosts. Data-driven approaches form a mesh out of overlay nodes to exchange data, which greatly enhances the resilience. It however suffers from an efficiency-latency tradeoff, given that the data have to be pulled from mesh neighbors with periodical notifications. In this paper, we suggest a novel hybrid tree/mesh design that leverages both overlays. The key idea is to identify a set of stable nodes to construct a tree-based backbone, called treebone, with most of the data being pushed over this backbone. These stable nodes, together with others, are further organized through an auxiliary mesh overlay, which facilitates the treebone to accommodate node dynamics and fully exploit the available bandwidth between overlay nodes. This hybrid design, referred to as mTreebone, is braced by our real trace studies, which show strong evidence that the performance of an overlay closely depends on a small set of backbone nodes. It however poses a series of unique and critical design challenges, in particular, the identification of stable nodes and seamless data delivery using both push and pull methods. In this paper, we present optimized solutions to these problems, which reconcile the two overlays under a coherent framework with controlled overhead. We evaluate mTreebone through both simulations and PlanetLab experiments. The results demonstrate the superior efficiency and robustness of this hybrid solution.
18277516
Mesh Optimisation Using Edge Information in Feature-Based Surface Reconstruction
One of the most challenging and fundamental problems in computer vision is to reconstruct a surface model given a set of uncalibrated 2D images. Well-established Structure from Motion (SfM) algorithms often result in a sparse set of 3D surface points, but surface modelling based on sparse 3D points is not easy. In this paper, we present a new method to refine and optimise surface meshes using edge information in the 2D images. We design a meshing – edge point detection – re-meshing scheme that can gradually refine the surface mesh until it best fits the true physical surface of the object being modelled. Our method is tested on real images and satisfactory results are obtained.
15518330
Enhanced Reputation Mechanism for Mobile Ad Hoc Networks
Interactions between entities unknown to each other are inevitable in the ambient intelligence vision of service access anytime, anywhere. Trust management through a reputation mechanism to facilitate such interactions is recognized as a vital part of mobile ad hoc networks, which features lack of infrastructure, autonomy, mobility and resource scarcity of composing light-weight terminals. However, the design of a reputation mechanism is faced by challenges of how to enforce reputation information sharing and honest recommendation elicitation. In this paper, we present a reputation model, which incorporates two essential dimensions, time and context, along with mechanisms supporting reputation formation, evolution and propagation. By introducing the notion of recommendation reputation, our reputation mechanism shows effectiveness in distinguishing truth-telling and lying agents, obtaining true reputation of an agent, and ensuring reliability against attacks of defame and collusion.
33842812
Anycast-Based Cooperative Proxy Caching
As one of the most popular applications currently running on the Internet, the World Wide Web is of an exponential growth in size, which results in the network congestion and server overloading. Web caching as an important technique aims at reducing network traffic, server load, and user-perceived retrieval delays by replicating popular contents on proxy caches. In our paper, we develop an anycast-based cooperative web proxy caching mechanism. It puts response time, hop counts, self-organized load balancing, adaption, and self-configuration as primary concerns. In our scheme, anycast is used to bring a server “nearest” to a client to improve overall performance, all proxies in a local network consists an anycast group. The object placement and replacement problems are formulated as an optimization problem and the solution is obtained by using an anycast-based cooperative proxy caching algorithm. Some simulation experiments have been conduced to evaluate the proposed scheme in terms of a wide range of performance metrics. Analytical and experimental results show that our algorithm outperforms some existing algorithms in response time, hop counts.
828752
Generalized monotone schemes, discrete paths of extrema, and discrete entropy conditions
Solutions of conservation laws satisfy the monotonicity property: the number of local extrema is a non-increasing function of time, and local maximum/minimum values decrease/increase monotonically in time. This paper investigates this property from a numerical standpoint. We introduce a class of fully discrete in space and time, high order accurate, difference schemes, called generalized monotone schemes. Convergence toward the entropy solution is proven via a new technique of proof, assuming that the initial data has a finite number of extremum values only, and the flux-function is strictly convex. We define discrete paths of extrema by tracking local extremum values in the approximate solution. In the course of the analysis we establish the pointwise convergence of the trace of the solution along a path of extremum. As a corollary, we obtain a proof of convergence for a MUSCL-type scheme that is second order accurate away from sonic points and extrema.
5220045
A study of the performance and parameter sensitivity of adaptive distributed caching
A self-organized approach to manage a distributed proxy system called Adaptive Distributed Caching (ADC) has been proposed previously [8]. We model each proxy as an autonomous agent that is equipped to decide how to deal with client requests using local information. Experimental results show that our ADC algorithm is able to compete with typical hashing-based approaches. This paper gives a full description of the self-organizing distributed algorithm, with a performance comparison based on hits and hops rate. Additional evaluation of the parameters caching-, multiple- and single-table size is also presented.