A scalable low-latency cache invalidation strategy for mobile environments

Caching frequently accessed data items on the client side is an effective technique for improving performance in a mobile environment. Classical cache invalidation strategies are not suitable for mobile environments due to frequent disconnections and mobility of the clients. One attractive cache invalidation technique is based on invalidation reports (IRs). However, the IR-based cache invalidation solution has two major drawbacks, which have not been addressed in previous research. First, there is a long query latency associated with this solution since a client cannot answer the query until the next IR interval. Second, when the server updates a hot data item, all clients have to query the server and get the data from the server separately, which wastes a large amount of bandwidth. In this paper, we propose an IR-based cache invalidation algorithm, which can significantly reduce the query latency and efficiently utilize the broadcast bandwidth. Detailed analytical analysis and simulation experiments are carried out to evaluate the proposed methodology. Compared to previous IR-based schemes, our scheme can significantly improve the throughput and reduce the query latency, the number of uplink request, and the broadcast bandwidth requirements.     

An enhanced client-centric approach for efficient video broadcast

Periodic broadcast is a cost-effective solution for large-scale distribution of popular videos. Regardless of the number of video requests, this strategy guarantees a constant worst service latency to all clients, making it possible to serve a large community with a minimal amount of broadcast bandwidth. Although many efficient periodic broadcast techniques have been proposed, most of them impose rigid requirements on client receiving bandwidth. They either demand clients to have the same bandwidth as the video server, or limit them to receive no more than two video streams at any one time. In our previous work, we addressed this problem with a Client-Centric Approach (CCA). This scheme takes into consideration both server broadcast bandwidth and client receiving bandwidth and allows clients to use all their receiving capability for prefetching broadcast data. As a result, given a fixed broadcast bandwidth, a shorter broadcast period can be achieved with an improved client communication capability. In this paper, we present an enhanced version of CCA to further leverage client bandwidth for more efficient video broadcast. The new scheme reduces the broadcast latency up to 50% as compared to CCA. We prove the correctness of this new technique and provide an analytical evaluation to show its performance advantage as compared with some existing techniques.

Efficient schemes for broadcasting popular videos

We provide a formal framework for studying broadcasting schemes and design a family of schemes for broadcasting popular videos, the greedy disk-conserving broadcasting (GDB) family. We analyze the resource requirements for GDB, i.e., the number of server broadcast channels, the client storage space, and the client I/O bandwidth required by GDB. Our analysis shows that all of our proposed broadcasting schemes are within a small factor of the optimal scheme in terms of the server bandwidth requirement. Furthermore, GDB exhibits a tradeoff between any two of the three resources. We compare our scheme with a recently proposed broadcasting scheme, skyscraper broadcasting (SB). With GDB, we can reduce the client storage space by as much as 50% or the number of server channels by as much as 30% at the cost of a small additional increase in the amount of client I/O bandwidth. If we require the client I/O bandwidth of GDB to be identical to that of SB, GDB needs only 70% of the client storage space required by SB or one less server channel than SB does. In addition, we show that with small client I/O bandwidth, the resource requirements of GDB are close to the minimum achievable by any disk-conserving broadcasting scheme.     

Dynamic Scheme Transition Adaptable to Variable Video Popularity in a Digital Broadcast Network

To provide on-demand video streaming services through the network, video objects with both high and low client request rates must be served efficiently. In this paper, we propose a dynamic scheme transition to provide on-demand streaming services efficiently regardless of video popularity. This approach can maintain quality-of-service (QoS) by transitioning the service scheme according to the request rate. The server provides services by heuristically broadcasting video segments when the video popularity is low and by a Periodic Broadcast when the video popularity is high. The server identifies the variations in client request rates from the number of service channels and determines transitions to more efficient service schemes autonomously. We evaluated this scheme transition for various parameters and traces from a company providing streaming services. The results show that the performance of scheme transition is very efficient.      

Improvement of the client-centric approach for broadcasting popular videos

Periodic broadcast is a cost-effective solution for large-scale distribution of popular videos. Regardless of the number of video requests, this strategy guarantees constant worst service latency to all clients. An essential periodic broadcast method is the client-centric approach (CCA), which allows clients to use smaller receiving bandwidth to download broadcast data. An enhanced version, namely CCA+, was proposed to yield a shorter waiting time. This work further improves CCA+ by leveraging client bandwidth for more efficient video broadcast. The new scheme reduces the broadcast latency by as much as 39?% when compared to CCA+ and 78?% when compared to CCA. We prove the applicability of this new scheme and provide an analytical evaluation to demonstrate the performance advantage, as compared with particular schemes.     

Dynamic storage and access load balancing for answering range queries in peer-to-peer networks

Recently, many applications have used Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems to overcome the current problems with client/server systems such as non-scalability, high bandwidth requirement and single point of failure. In this paper, we propose an efficient scheme to support efficient range query processing over structured P2P systems, while balancing both the storage load and access load. The paper proposes a rotating token scheme to balance the storage load by placing joining nodes in appropriate locations in the identifier space to share loads with already overloaded nodes. Then, to support range queries, we utilize an order-preserving mapping function to map keys to nodes in order preserving way and without hashing. This may result in an access load imbalance due to non-uniform distribution of keys in the identifier space. Thus, we propose an adaptive replication scheme to relieve overloaded nodes by shedding some load on other nodes to balance the access load. We derive a formula for estimating the overhead of the proposed adaptive replication scheme. In this study, we carry simulation experiments with synthetic data to measure the performance of the proposed schemes. Our simulation experiments show significant gains in both storage load balancing and access load balancing.     

Minimizing bandwidth requirements for on-demand data delivery

Two recent techniques for multicast or broadcast delivery of streaming media can provide immediate service to each client request, yet achieve considerable client stream sharing which leads to significant server and network bandwidth savings. The paper considers: 1) how well these recently proposed techniques perform relative to each other and 2) whether there are new practical delivery techniques that can achieve better bandwidth savings than the previous techniques over a wide range of client request rates. The principal results are as follows: First, the recent partitioned dynamic skyscraper technique is adapted to provide immediate service to each client request more simply and directly than the original dynamic skyscraper method. Second, at moderate to high client request rates, the dynamic skyscraper method has required server bandwidth that is significantly lower than the recent optimized stream tapping/patching/controlled multicast technique. Third, the minimum required server bandwidth for any delivery technique that provides immediate real-time delivery to clients increases logarithmically (with constant factor equal to one) as a function of the client request arrival rate. Furthermore, it is (theoretically) possible to achieve very close to the minimum required server bandwidth if client receive bandwidth is equal to two times the data streaming rate and client storage capacity is sufficient for buffering data from shared streams. Finally, we propose a new practical delivery technique, called hierarchical multicast stream merging (HMSM), which has a required server bandwidth that is lower than the partitioned dynamic skyscraper and is reasonably close to the minimum achievable required server bandwidth over a wide range of client request rates     

一种新的视频点播方案——扩展幂级方案

提出一种适合于热门节目的分块广播(partition broadcasting)方案——扩展幂级方案，分析了该方案的资源需求包括服务器信道、用户端缓存、用户端I／O带宽等，并根据方案的周期性分析了用户点播时间与缓存空间及用户端I／O带宽的关系．结论表明它比现有的许多其它同类方案有着更好的兼容性，能很好地权衡用户端的I／O带宽及缓存空间，而且更易于实现。     

A General Framework of Time-Variant Bandwidth Allocation in the Data Broadcasting Environment

Data broadcast is an advanced technique to realize large scalability and bandwidth utilization in a mobile computing environment. In this environment, the channel bandwidth of each channel is variant with time in real cases. However, traditional schemes do not consider time-variant bandwidth of each channel to schedule data items. Therefore, the above drawback degrades the performance in generating broadcast programs. In this paper, we address the problem of generating a broadcast program to disseminate data via multiple channels of time-variant bandwidth. In view of the characteristics of time-variant bandwidth, we propose an algorithm using adaptive allocation on time-variant bandwidth to generate the broadcast program to avoid the above drawback to minimize average waiting time. Experimental results show that our approach is able to generate the broadcast programs with high quality and is very efficient in a data broadcasting environment with the time-variant bandwidth.     

Smooth workload adaptive broadcast

The high-bandwidth requirements and long-lived characteristics of digital video make transmission bandwidth usage a key limiting factor in the widespread streaming of such content over the Internet. A challenging problem is to develop bandwidth-efficient techniques for delivering popular videos to a large, asynchronous client population with time-varying demand characteristics. In this paper, we propose smooth workload adaptive broadcast to address the above issues. A key component of our scheme is Flexible Periodic Broadcast (FPB). By introducing a feedback control loop into FPB, and enhancing FPB using techniques such as parsimonious transmission, smooth workload adaptive broadcast provides instantaneous or near-instantaneous playback services and can smoothly adapt to workload changes. Furthermore, FPB, as proposed in this paper, is bandwidth efficient and exhibits the periodic smooth channel transition property.     

Algorithm for efficient generation of link-state updates in ATM networks

In the routing framework defined by the ATM Forum Private Network Node Interface (P-NNI) working group, each node broadcasts link-state update (LSU) messages (which include information such as available bandwidth, maximum delay, etc.) about the outgoing links attached to it to other nodes in the network. For each connection request, the source node selects an end-to-end route that meets the quality of service (QoS) requirements of the connection based on the most recent information that it has about network links. Up-to-date information about network links is, therefore, key to making “good” routing decisions. The triggering of LSU broadcasts after adding or removing a single connection on any link would certainly enable optimal paths to be calculated but at a potentially significant cost in processing and bandwidth. A periodic update scheme, on the other hand, might be more preferable since it can be used to bound the frequency of updates at the expense of delaying important updates (such as those reporting large changes in link load). The goal of an efficient LSU generating algorithm is, therefore, to provide “accurate” information on link loads while keeping the number of LSUs under control. In this paper, we investigate the issue of when to broadcast LSUs and its effects to the network performance. A simulation model is built to model the basic routing framework developed at the ATM Forum P-NNI working group. Based on the intuition gained by running the simulation model with different schemes and parameters, a hybrid LSU generating algorithm, combining event-driven and periodic update strategies, is proposed to substantially reduce the number of LSUs generated in the network without a significant negative impact on the network performance. The proposed algorithm is not limited to the P-NNI framework and it can be used in networking technologies that are based on the link-state principles.     

Impact of bandwidth request schemes for Best-Effort traffic in IEEE 802.16 networks

In IEEE 802.16 networks, bandwidth request–grant schemes are employed for reducing data collision and supporting various QoS requirements. In this paper, we investigate the impact of such schemes on Best-Effort (BE) traffic. We examine three candidate schemes. In the first scheme, each Subscribe Station (SS) attempts to request bandwidth in every frame to reduce delay. In the second scheme, the number of bandwidth request is limited to avoid collisions in bandwidth request. In the third scheme, a base station allocates bandwidth to each SS based on the measured sending rate without explicit bandwidth request. We quantitatively analyze the performance of these schemes in terms of the collision rate and buffer length. We also present a simulation study to validate our analysis and to observe the impact of these schemes on BE traffic. This paper shows that IEEE 802.16 networks can be effectively managed through appropriate bandwidth request schemes. It is also shown that bandwidth allocation without request can be an alternative for increasing utilization.     

An enhanced framework for providing multimedia broadcast/multicast service over heterogeneous networks

Multimedia broadcast multicast service （MBMS） with inherently low requirement for network resources has been proposed as a candidate solution for using such resources in a more efficient manner. On the other hand, the Next Generation Mobile Network （NGMN） combines multiple radio access technologies （RATs） to optimize overall network performance. Handover performance is becoming a vital indicator of the quality experience of mobile user equipment （UE）. In contrast to the conventional vertical handover issue, the problem we are facing is how to seamlessly transmit broadcast/multicast sessions among heterogeneous networks. In this paper, we propose a new network entity, media independent broadcast multicast service center （MIBM-SC）, to provide seamless handover for broadcast/multicast sessions over heterogeneous networks, by extensions and enhancements of MBMS and media independent information service （MIIS） architectures. Additionally, a network selection scheme and a cell transmission mode selection scheme are proposed for selecting the best target network and best transmission mode. Both schemes are based on a load-aware network capacity estimation algorithm. Simulation results show that the pro- posed approach has the capability to provide MBMS over heterogeneous networks, with improved handover performance in terms of packet loss rate, throughput, handover delay, cell load, bandwidth usage, and the peak signal-to-noise ratio （PSNR）.     

A scalable cost-effective video broadcasting system for on-demand video services

Recent years have seen intensive investigations of Periodic Broadcast, an attractive paradigm for broadcasting popular videos. In this paradigm, the server simply broadcasts segments of a popular video periodically on a number of communication channels. A large number of clients can be served simultaneously by tuning into these channels to receive segments of the requested video. A playback can begin as soon as a client can access the first segment. Periodic Broadcast guarantees a small maximum service delay regardless of the number of concurrent clients. Existing periodic broadcast techniques are typically evaluated through analytical assessment. While these results are good performance indicators, they cannot demonstrate subtle implementation difficulty that can prohibit these techniques from practical deployment. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a video broadcasting system based on our periodic broadcast scheme called Striping Broadcast. Our experience with the system confirms that the system offers a low service delay close to its analytical guaranteed delay while requiring small storage space and low download bandwidth at a client.     

Above packet level admission control and bandwidth allocation for IEEE 802.16 wireless MAN

IEEE 802.16 wireless Metropolitan Area Network (MAN) is expected to revolutionize the broadband wireless access technology. Efficient resource management is essential in providing scalability in such large IEEE 802.16-based wireless network and Quality of Service (QoS) for multimedia applications (VoIP, MPEG, FTP, WWW) is usually achieved by appropriate classification of scheduling services and grant/request mechanism. In this paper, we firstly discuss the QoS issue in IEEE 802.16 wireless MANs and propose a dynamic admission control scheme for scheduling services defined in the 802.16 specification. The proposed scheme provides the highest priority for Unsolicited Grant Service (UGS) connections and maximizes the bandwidth utilization by employing bandwidth borrowing and degradation. We develop an approximate analytical model to evaluate the system performance by assuming that the traffic processes of all scheduling services are Poisson processes. In fact, the self-similarity of non-voice traffic makes its traffic process far from Poisson process and should be modeled by Poisson Pareto Burst Process (PPBP). Therefore, in the later part of the paper, we analyze upper bound blocking probabilities of all scheduling services above the packet level using PPBP model for fractal traffic and Gaussian model for aggregated traffic in large wireless network as well as using the Chernoff bound method. Based on the analytical results, we give another admission control and bandwidth allocation mechanism above the packet level so as to minimize the blocking probability of each type of service in IEEE 802.16 wireless MAN. Analytical and simulation results are obtained and compared to demonstrate the effectiveness of proposed schemes and validate our analytical models.     

Harmonic proportional bandwidth allocation and scheduling for service differentiation on streaming servers

To provide ubiquitous access to the proliferating rich media on the Internet, scalable streaming servers must be able to provide differentiated services to various client requests. Recent advances of transcoding technology make network-I/O bandwidth usages at the server communication ports controllable by request schedulers on the fly. In this article, we propose a transcoding-enabled bandwidth allocation scheme for service differentiation on streaming servers. It aims to deliver high bit rate streams to high priority request classes without overcompromising low priority request classes. We investigate the problem of providing differentiated streaming services at application level in two aspects: stream bandwidth allocation and request scheduling. We formulate the bandwidth allocation problem as an optimization of a harmonic utility function of the stream quality factors and derive the optimal streaming bit rates for requests of different classes under various server load conditions. We prove that the optimal allocation, referred to as harmonic proportional allocation, not only maximizes the system utility function, but also guarantees proportional fair sharing between classes with different prespecified differentiation weights. We evaluate the allocation scheme, in combination with two popular request scheduling approaches, via extensive simulations and compare it with an absolute differentiation strategy and a proportional-share strategy tailored from relative differentiation in networking. Simulation results show that the harmonic proportional allocation scheme can meet the objective of relative differentiation in both short and long timescales and greatly enhance the service availability and maintain low queueing delay when the streaming system is highly loaded.     

An active buffer management technique for providing interactive functions in broadcast video-on-demand systems

Multicast delivery is an efficient approach to the provision of a video-on-demand (VoD) service. Interacting with the video stream is a desirable feature for users. However, it is a challenging task to provide the functionality in the multicast environment because a lot of users share multicast delivery channels. In this paper, we propose an active buffer management technique to provide interactive functions in broadcast VoD systems. In our scheme, the client can selectively prefetch segments from broadcast channels based on the observation of the play point in its local buffer. The content of the buffer is adjusted in such a way that the relative position of the play point is kept in the middle part of the buffer. Our simulations show that the active buffer management scheme can implement interactive actions through buffering with a high probability in a wide range of user interaction levels.     

On the performance of real-time multi-item request scheduling in data broadcast environments

On-demand broadcast is an effective wireless data dissemination technique to enhance system scalability and capability to handle dynamic data access patterns. Previous studies on time-critical on-demand data broadcast were conducted under the assumption that each client requests only one data item at a time. With the rapid growth of time-critical information dissemination services in emerging applications, there is an increasing need for systems to support efficient processing of real-time multi-item requests. Little work, however, has been done. In this paper, we study the behavior of six representative single-item request based scheduling algorithms in time-critical multi-item request environments. The results show that the performance of all algorithms deteriorates when dealing with multi-item requests. We observe that data popularity, which is an effective factor to save bandwidth and improve performance in scheduling single-item requests, becomes a hindrance to performance in multi-item request environments. Most multi-item requests scheduled by these algorithms suffer from a starvation problem, which is the root of performance deterioration. Based on our analysis, a novel algorithm that considers both request popularity and request timing requirement is proposed. The performance results of our simulation study show that the proposed algorithm is superior to other classical algorithms under a variety of circumstances.     

A Statistical Admission Control Scheme for Continuous Media Servers Using Caching

In continuous media servers, disk load can be reduced by using buffer cache. In order to utilize the saved disk bandwidth by caching, a continuous media server must employ an admission control scheme to decide whether a new client can be admitted for service without violating the requirements of clients already being serviced. A scheme providing deterministic QoS guarantees in servers using caching has already been proposed. Since, however, deterministic admission control is based on the worst case assumption, it causes the wastage of the system resources. If we can exactly predict the future available disk bandwidth, both high disk utilization and hiccup-free service are achievable. However, as the caching effect is not analytically determined, it is difficult to predict the disk load without substantial computation overhead. In this paper, we propose a statistical admission control scheme for continuous media servers where caching is used to reduce disk load. This scheme improves disk utilization and allows more streams to be serviced while maintaining near-deterministic service. The scheme, called Shortsighted Prediction Admission Control (SPAC), combines exact prediction through on-line simulation and statistical estimation using a probabilistic model of future disk load in order to reduce computation overhead. It thereby exploits the variation in disk load induced by VBR-encoded objects and the decrease in client load by caching. Through trace-driven simulations, it is demonstrated that the scheme provides near-deterministic QoS and keeps disk utilization high.     

An Efficient Channel Allocation Technique for Multiple Videos-on-Demand

There are several broadcasting protocols for video-on-demand (VOD). Most of these protocols are tailored to handle the distribution of single video for a specific range of request arrival rates. In order to distribute multiple videos, broadcasting protocols like fast broadcasting (FB), new pagoda broadcasting (NPB) and universal distribution (UD) require more channels that are proportional to the number of hot videos to be broadcast. We present here an efficient broadcasting protocol in which, channel numbers can be reduced when multiple videos are broadcast either simultaneously or asynchronously. During the low to moderate request rates, our protocol performs best as similar to other reactive protocols and saves bandwidth and requires lesser number of channels as compared to other proactive or reactive protocols.