满足带宽的实时流覆盖组播算法

面对实时多媒体组通信应用中带宽瓶颈及用户对服务质量的不同需求,通过对带宽、时延、抖动等网络性能指标施加约束,设计一个满足大规模用户带宽需求的覆盖组播算法(BOM),用于构建层次化的覆盖组播树,平衡服务代理节点间的负载和链路间的流量.通过基于GT-ITM的网络仿真实验,证明该方法在实时流传输中具有较低的延迟、较小的抖动性和良好的可扩展性.     

面向QoS的域间实时流覆盖组播方法研究

针对跨域远程协作中的实时流通信质量问题,构建了实时流服务网格（LSSG）,这是一个可扩展的且面向用户QoS需求的覆盖组播通信中间件结构,LSSG服务由网络服务提供商策略部署的服务代理（SvB）提供。论文主要采用面向QoS的域间覆盖组播算法（QIOM）来组织SvB建立实时流组播服务树,根据用户服务质量请求提供跨自治系统的实时流组通信服务,将域间资源管理转变为流媒体应用的动态协同服务管理。仿真结果表明QIOM能有效地发现和提供QoS满意的覆盖服务及实现SvB间的覆盖流量负载平衡。     

基于遗传算法的P2P流媒体多播模型

为解决P2P流媒体通信中的流量控制问题，给出一个P2P社区覆盖多播通信优化模型及其建立覆盖核心多播树OCMT的QoS约束条件，并采用一个面向目标的遗传算法解决建立OCMT中的路径优化问题。仿真实验结果表明该模型能为建立具有低延迟和强扩展能力的核心多播树获得较优化的方案，并且有效地降低不同P2P社区间的数据流量，实现控制Internet流量的目的。     

Island Multicast: Combining IP Multicast With Overlay Data Distribution

Traditional overlay protocols use unicast connections to form delivery trees. While it can achieve global multicast across the Internet, it is not as efficient as IP multicast. In this paper, we integrate IP multicast into overlay data distribution to improve delivery efficiency. We investigate island multicast where unicast connections are used to connect multicast domains and IP multicast is used within multicast domains. We first explore a centralized island multicast protocol (termed CIM), which relies on a central server to construct a delivery tree. We then study a distributed protocol (termed DIM), where hosts can distributedly join islands and form a delivery tree. We study the key issues in both protocols. We also discuss how to apply these protocols to media streaming applications. We have evaluated both protocols on Internet-like topologies. We have also implemented a prototype for CIM and tested it on PlanetLab. The results show that our approaches can significantly im prove network performance as compared to pure overlay protocols. Our study shows that it is important to consider local multicast capability when designing overlay protocols.     

Improving the Fault Resilience of Overlay Multicast for Media Streaming

A key technical challenge for overlay multicast is that the highly dynamic multicast members can make data delivery unreliable. In this paper, we address this issue in the context of live media streaming by exploring 1) how to construct a stable multicast tree that minimizes the negative impact of frequent member departures on an existing overlay and 2) how to efficiently recover from packet errors caused by end-system or network failures. For the first problem, we identify two layout schemes for the tree nodes, namely, the bandwidth-ordered tree and the time-ordered tree, which represent two typical approaches to improving tree reliability, and conduct a stochastic analysis on their properties regarding reliability and tree depth. Based on the findings, we propose a distributed reliability-oriented switching tree (ROST) algorithm that minimizes the failure correlation among tree nodes. Compared with some commonly used distributed algorithms, the ROST algorithm significantly improves tree reliability and reduces average service delay, while incurring only a small protocol overhead; furthermore, it features a mechanism that prevents cheating or malicious behaviors in the exchange of bandwidth/time information. For the second problem, we develop a simple cooperative error recovery (CER) protocol that helps recover from packet errors efficiently. Recognizing that a single recovery source is usually incapable of providing the timely delivery of the lost data, the protocol recovers from data outages using the residual bandwidths from multiple sources, which are identified using a minimum-loss-correlation algorithm. Extensive simulations demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed schemes     

一种异构环境下覆盖多播网络路由算法

由于IP多播在部署上的困难,覆盖多播网络(overlay multicast networks,简称OMN)作为构建通用的多播服务平台的另一可行途径正不断为人们所认可.针对实时多媒体应用对带宽需求的异构性,研讨了异构环境下OMN的路由问题.通过对度约束模型进行扩展,描述了一种新的适应异构环境的OMN网络模型.采用分层的带宽分配策略,提出了一种异构环境下构造OMN最小延时半径多播树的启发式算法--分层的压缩树(1ayered compact tree,简称LCT)算法,并对其性质进行了理论证明和分析.仿真实验结果表明,随着分配带宽的减少,LCT算法能够有效地降低多播树的高度和网络资源使用量,并保持较低的多播树延时半径增幅.     

基于应用层组播的流媒体直播系统

应用层组播技术不需要网络层设备的支持，适合用于流媒体服务。在基于单播的流媒体直播系统基础上，设置应用层组播服务器，赋予客户端转发数据的能力，设计符合流媒体特点的应用层组播协议，形成了基于应用层组播的流媒体直播系统。按照该方案开发的原型系统运行状况表明，该设计方案能够稳定地提供流媒体服务。相比于基于单播的流媒体直播系统，采用应用层组播技术可以明显提高系统的用户数量，并保持较好的服务质量。     

Dynamic overlay multicast for live multimedia streaming in urban VANETs

Infotainment service has been a foreseeing trend in VANETs (Vehicular Ad Hoc Networks), and multimedia streaming has a high potential in VANET infotainment service. This paper considers the scenario of live multimedia streaming multicast to vehicles of the same group using a dynamic application layer overlay. Due to the willingness for cooperation of non-group nodes, application layer overlay multicast is more feasible than other kinds of multicast such as network-coding-based multicast and network-layer multicast. To adapt to high mobility and full of obstacles in urban VANETs, we propose an effective dynamic overlay multicast scheme for multimedia streaming, called OMV (Overlay Multicast in VANETs). The proposed OMV enhances an overlay’s stability with two strategies: (1) QoS-satisfied dynamic overlay and (2) mesh-structure overlay. The QoS-satisfied strategy to adjust the overlay selects potential new parents based on their streams’ packet loss rates and end-to-end delays. The mesh-structure strategy allows a child to have multiple parents. We evaluate the proposed OMV in urban VANETs with obstacles using two real video clips to demonstrate the feasibility of the OMV for real videos. Evaluation results show that comparing the proposed OMV to Qadri et al.’s work, which is a static mesh overlay and is the best method available in VANETs, the packet loss rate is reduced by 27.1% and the end-to-end delay is decreased by 11.7%, with a small control overhead of 2.1%, on average. Comparing the proposed OMV for tree overlays to ALMA, which is for dynamic tree multicast overlays and is also the best method available in MANETs, the packet loss rate is reduced by 7.1% and the end-to-end delay is decreased by 13.1%. In addition, to address the problem of obstacle-prone urban VANETs, we also derive feasible stream rates and overlay sizes for city maps with different road section sizes. To the best of our knowledge, how to organize and dynamically adjust an application layer multicast overlay for live multimedia streaming have not been studied in existing VANET literatures. In summary, to deal with highly dynamic topologies in urban VANETs, we propose a QoS-satisfied strategy for group nodes to switch to new parents that can offer better QoS. The proposed OMV is feasible for live multimedia streaming applications, such as emergency live video transmission and live video tour guides for passengers in different vehicles that belong to the same multicast group.     

Distributed optimization of P2P live streaming overlays

Peer-to-peer live media streaming over the Internet is becoming increasingly more popular, though it is still a challenging problem. Nodes should receive the stream with respect to intrinsic timing constraints, while the overlay should adapt to the changes in the network and the nodes should be incentivized to contribute their resources. In this work, we meet these contradictory requirements simultaneously, by introducing a distributed market model to build an efficient overlay for live media streaming. Using our market model, we construct two different overlay topologies, tree-based and mesh-based, which are the two dominant approaches to the media distribution. First, we build an approximately minimal height multiple-tree data dissemination overlay, called Sepidar. Next, we extend our model, in GLive, to make it more robust in dynamic networks by replacing the tree structure with a mesh. We show in simulation that the mesh-based overlay outperforms the multiple-tree overlay. We compare the performance of our two systems with the state-of-the-art NewCoolstreaming, and observe that they provide better playback continuity and lower playback latency than that of NewCoolstreaming under a variety of experimental scenarios. Although our distributed market model can be run against a random sample of nodes, we improve its convergence time by executing it against a sample of nodes taken from the Gradient overlay. The evaluations show that the streaming overlays converge faster when our market model works on top of the Gradient overlay.     

基于用户行为分析的应用层组播树生成算法

应用层组播采用终端主机转发数据的方式，在一对多的媒体内容分发方面具有广阔的应用前景．与IP组播相比，应用层组播具有灵活和易实施的特点，但是因为终端主机可以自由地退出组播树，应用层组播也存在数据传递易中断的缺点，这对实时性要求严格的视频直播应用的影响尤为严重．通过对超过1000万条实际视频直播系统的真实用户记录进行统计分析，发现用户平均剩余在线时间随着已经在线时间的增大而增大，并据此提出了一种适用于视频直播的应用层组播树生成算法．模拟结果表明，算法对减少视频直播应用下应用层组播树的数据传递中断次数有明显作用．     

Software-Defined Multicast for Over-the-Top and Overlay-based Live Streaming in ISP Networks

The increasing amount of over-the-top (OTT) live streams and the lack of global network layer multicast support poses challenges for a scalable and efficient streaming over the Internet. Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) help by delivering the streams to the edge of almost every Internet Service Provider (ISP) network of the world but usually also end there. From there on, the streams are to be delivered to the clients using IP unicast, although an IP multicast functionality would be desirable to reduce the load on CDN nodes, transit links, and the ISP infrastructure. IP multicast is usually not available due to missing control and management features of the protocol. Alternatively, Peer-to-Peer (P2P) mechanisms can be applied to extend the overlay multicast functionality of the CDN towards the clients. Unfortunately, P2P only improves the situation for the CDN but makes it more challenging for the ISP as even more unicast flows are generated between clients inside and outside the ISP network. To tackle this problem, a Software-Defined Networking-based cross-layer approach, called Software-Defined Multicast (SDM), is proposed in this paper, enabling ISPs to offer network layer multicast support for OTT and overlay-based live streaming as a service. SDM is specifically tailored towards the needs of P2P-based video stream delivery originating from outside the ISP network and can easily be integrated with existing streaming systems. Prototypical evaluations show significantly improved network layer transmission efficiencies when compared to other overlay streaming mechanisms, down to a level as low as for IP multicast, at linearly bounded costs.     

典型P2P流媒体模型

分析和比较了几种典型的P2P流媒体模型,介绍了P2P流媒体不同模型常用的数据调度算法,并指出了基于应用层多播的树模型和基于Gossip协议的网状模型的区别,最后指出了P2P流媒体的研究方向。     

Network-Supported Layered Multicast Transport Control for Streaming Media

Multicast is very efficient in distributing a large volume of data to multiple receivers over the Internet. Layered multicast helps solve the heterogeneity problem in multicast delivery. Extensive work has been done in the area of layered multicast, for both congestion control and error control. In this paper, we focus on network-supported protocols for streaming media. Most of the existing work solves the congestion control and error control problems separately and does not give an integrated efficient solution. In this paper, after reviewing related work, we introduce our proposed protocols, namely, router-assisted layered multicast (RALM) and router-assisted layered FEC (RALF). The former is a congestion control protocol, whereas the latter is an error control protocol. They work under the same framework and provide an integrated solution. We also extend RALM to RALM-II, which is compatible with transmission control protocol (TCP) traffic. We analyze the complexity of the proposed protocols in the network and investigate their performance through simulations. We show that our solution achieves significant performance gains with reasonable additional complexity.     

典型P2P流媒体模型及其关键技术

分析并比较几种典型P2P流媒体模型的可扩展性、启动延时和系统稳定性,指出基于gossip协议的媒体服务模型与基于多播树协议的P2P流媒体服务模型的区别。总结P2P流媒体服务体系涉及的数据调度算法、节点选择优化算法等关键技术,分析其存在的问题并指出研究方向。     

A Scalable Overlay Multicast Architecture for Large-Scale Applications

In this paper, we propose a two-tier overlay multicast architecture (TOMA) to provide scalable and efficient multicast support for various group communication applications. In TOMA, multicast service overlay network (MSON) is advocated as the backbone service domain, while end users in access domains form a number of small clusters, in which an application-layer multicast protocol is used for the communication between the clustered end users. TOMA is able to provide efficient resource utilization with less control overhead, especially for large-scale applications. It also alleviates the state scalability problem and simplifies multicast tree construction and maintenance when there are large numbers of groups in the network. To help MSON providers efficiently plan backbone service overlay, we suggest several provisioning algorithms to locate proxies, select overlay links, and allocate link bandwidth. Extensive simulation studies demonstrate the promising performance of TOMA     

实时流覆盖组播服务网络研究

针对ISP在提供实时多媒体服务时对灵活性的需求，设计了一个基于覆盖组播的实时流网络模型，利用面向服务的方法传送语音、视频等流数据，改善了实时流应用中的QoS，较好地解决了ISP部署多媒体增值服务业务的灵活性问题。并结合NUQ应用实例，从服务控制和资源管理的角度，研究组合实时流服务和构件来实现组通信服务，并分析了满足QoS和控制资源的方法。     

Enhancing P2P overlay network architecture for live multimedia streaming

The number of live multimedia streaming applications is increasing, explaining the use of many overlay network topologies. Application-layer multicast (ALM) that it is a feasible alternative to multimedia stream has attracted considerable attention. However, a serious problem of ALM is that the multicast tree may be fragile, and peer failure causes tree partitions. This work presents a novel Hierarchical Ring Tree (HRT) architecture for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) live multimedia streaming. The proposed architecture combines ring-based and tree-based structures in a robust, scalable, reliable and resilient structure that can be used practically as an ALM topology. When peers enter or leave the system, the topology can be recovered rapidly such that live multimedia stream can be delivered smoothly with a low latency. The proposed HRT topology is maintained efficiently without splitting or merging trees. The performance of the proposed architecture and algorithms is evaluated experimentally. Experimental results indicate that the proposed topology can be used in a high-churn P2P network with a small delay. Simulation and experiment results reveal that the proposed architecture has a lower overhead than the ZIGZAG approach when handling peers’ joining or leaving, exhibits faster recovery, better quality-of-service during streaming, and a more robust topology, even with an extremely high number of peers joining/leaving.     

mTreebone: A Collaborative Tree-Mesh Overlay Network for Multicast Video Streaming

Recently, application-layer overlay networks have been suggested as a promising solution for live video streaming over the Internet. To organize a multicast overlay, a natural structure is a tree, which, however, is known vulnerable to end-hosts dynamics. Data-driven approaches address this problem by employing a mesh structure, which enables data exchanges among multiple neighbors, and thus, greatly improves the overlay resilience. It unfortunately suffers from an efficiency-delay trade-off, because data have to be pulled from mesh neighbors by using extra notifications periodically. In this paper, we closely examine the contributions of overlay nodes, and argue that performance of a mesh overlay closely depends on a small set of stable backbone nodes. This is validated through a real trace study on PPLive, the largest commercial application-layer live streaming system to date. Motivated by this observation, we then suggest a novel collaborative tree-mesh design that leverages both mesh and tree structures. 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, brings 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 in both static and dynamic scenarios.     

网络编码用于无线网络流媒体多播的优势分析

将网络编码与基于NACK的反馈机制相结合,提出了一种以端到端方式运作的轻量级可靠传输协议。不同于NORM协议基于时间片的反馈机制,本协议应用反馈轮(feedback round)机制实现NACK抑制和NACK积累,预防NACK风暴,防止抖动。实验表明,在最大发送速率为2Mbps、组大小为128的设定下,其有效吞吐量是同类NORM协议的1.5倍。在此基础上,协议以网络编码代替FEC作为差错恢复机制,网络编码具有更大的编码空间,在无线网络高丢失率的情况下,具有更好的补偿特性,更适应流媒体传输时延敏感的特点。     

基于P2P的流媒体直播技术研究与展望

覆盖网络的组织与维护对于P2P流媒体直播系统的性能有着极其重要的影响.根据覆盖网络拓扑组织形式的不同,分别研究了基于单树结构、多树结构、随机拓扑结构的现有P2P流媒体直播技术方案,并结合节点的动态行为和传输延迟对方案的优缺点进行了分析比较.以此为基础概括总结有待解决的主要问题,展望了未来的研究方向,为基于P2P流媒体直播的进一步的研究和应用提供有益的参考.