A token-based incentive mechanism for video streaming applications in peer-to-peer networks

Free-riding is one of the main challenges of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) streaming systems which results in reduction in video streaming quality. Therefore, providing an incentive mechanism for stimulating cooperation is one of the essential requirements to maintain video Quality of Experience (QoE) in such systems. Among the existing mechanisms, payment-based schemes are most suitable for streaming applications due to their low overhead. However, to date, no dynamic payment mechanism has been proposed which can take the stochastic dynamics of the video streaming ecosystem (e.g., the request arrival, demand submission, bandwidth availability, etc.) into account. In this paper, we propose a dynamic token-based payment mechanism in which each peer earns tokens by admitting other peers’ requests and spends tokens for submitting its demands to the others. This system allows the peers to dynamically adjust their income level in adaptation to changes in the system state. We propose a Constrained Markov Decision Process (CMDP) formulation in which the goal of each peer is to obtain a request admission policy which minimizes the expected cumulative cost of consumed bandwidth, while satisfying a long-term constraint on the Mean Opinion Score (MOS) of the users as the measure of QoE. The proposed admission policy is adaptive to the request arrival process, bandwidth state and the token bucket length of each peer. To make up for the lack of design-time knowledge of the system’s statistics, each individual peer is equipped with a model-free algorithm to learn its optimal admission policy over the course of real-time interaction with the system. Simulation results are presented to compare the performance of the proposed algorithm against baseline schemes such as: random, token-threshold, bandwidth-threshold and myopic algorithms.     

Measurement,modeling and enhancement of BitTorrent-based VoD system

BitTorrent is one of the most popular Peer-to-Peer (P2P) applications for file sharing over the Internet. Video files take up a large proportion of space among the BitTorrent shared files. Recently, BitTorrent has attracted researchers’ interests, as an alternative method of providing video on demand (VoD) service. In this paper, we concentrate on enabling BitTorrent to support VoD service in existing swarms while maintaining the download efficiency of file-sharing users. We first examine the content properties of the BitTorrent system to explore the demands and challenges of VoD service in BitTorrent swarms. The efficiency of BitTorrent for various piece selection policies is then compared through measurement on PlanetLab. We also use an optimization mathematical model to analyze the hybrid BitTorrent system in which downloading peers and streaming peers coexist. Both measurement results and model analysis indicate the problem of system efficiency decline in the BitTorrent-based VoD systems, in comparison with the original BitTorrent file-sharing system. Our proposed approach, unlike existing strategies that are limited to changing the piece selection policy to allow BitTorrent to support streaming services, modifies both piece and peer selection policies to provide a “streaming while downloading” service in the BitTorrent system with downloading peers. For the peer selection policy, a CAP (Closest-Ahead Peers) method is applied to make better use of the peers’ upload bandwidths. For the piece selection policy, a sliding window-based hybrid method that combines the rarest-first policy with the sequential policy is proposed. To demonstrate the performance of our proposed approach, an evaluation is made using various metrics on PlanetLab. The results show that our proposed method has higher throughput and better streaming continuity than the sequential policy and BiToS.     

A P4P-integrated data-driven P2P system for the live multimedia streaming service

The Proactive network Provider Participation for the P2P (P4P) architecture deploys central servers, which perceives network status and provides peering suggestions to P2P systems in order to achieve better network resource utilization while supporting best possible application performance. However, P4P alone may not be able to make appropriate peering suggestions for live multimedia streaming since it does not include mechanisms to reflect some of the parameters that are important to the QoS of live multimedia streaming such as upload bandwidth and stability of a peer as a stream deliverer. Furthermore, peer synchronization and parent replacement in the middle of a session, which are critical issues to the QoS of live multimedia streaming, are also left as the matters to be dealt with by the P2P systems alone. Most of the existing data-driven P2P systems leverage periodic information exchanges among neighboring peers in order to cope with these problems, which may incur long delay and high control overhead. In this paper, we proposed P4P-integrated data-driven P2P system for live multimedia streaming service. The proposed system includes not only the peering suggestion mechanism appropriate for live multimedia streaming but also the peer synchronization and parent replacement mechanisms, which exploit the centralized P4P framework and do not require periodic control information exchanges. We implemented the system in NS-2 simulator and compared its performance to the P4P and existing data-driven P2P systems. The results from experiments show that the proposed system enhances QoS compared to the existing data-driven P2P systems while maintaining the same level of network efficiency of the original P4P.     

A suitable server placement for peer-to-peer live streaming

With the rapid growth of the scale, complexity, and heterogeneity of Peer-to-Peer (P2P) systems, it has become a great challenge to deal with the peer’s network-oblivious traffic and self-organization problems. A potential solution is to deploy servers in appropriate locations. However, due to the unique features and requirements of P2P systems, the traditional placement models cannot yield the desirable service performance. To fill this gap, we propose an efficient server placement model for P2P live streaming systems. Compared to the existing solutions, this model takes the Internet Service Provider (ISP) friendly problem into account and can reduce the cross-network traffic among ISPs. Specifically, we introduce the peers’ contribution into the proposed model, which makes it more suitable for P2P live streaming systems. Moreover, we deploy servers based on the theoretical solution subject to practical data and apply them to practical live streaming applications. The experimental results show that this new model can reduce the amount of cross-network traffic and improve the system efficiency, has a better adaptability to Internet environment, and is more suitable for P2P systems than the traditional placement models.     

InstantLeap: an architecture for fast neighbor discovery in large-scale P2P VoD streaming

In large-scale peer-to-peer (P2P) video-on-demand (VoD) streaming applications, a fundamental challenge is to quickly locate new supplying peers whenever a VCR command is issued, in order to achieve smooth viewing experiences. For many existing commercial systems which use tracker servers for neighbor discovery, the increasing scale of P2P VoD systems has overloaded the dedicated servers to the point where they cannot accurately identify the suppliers with the desired content and bandwidth. To avoid overloading the servers and achieve instant neighbor discovery over the self-organizing P2P overlay, we design a novel method of organizing peers watching a video. The method features a light-weight indexing architecture to support efficient streaming and fast neighbor discovery at the same time. InstantLeap separates the neighbors at each peer into a streaming neighbor list and a shortcut neighbor list, for streaming and neighbor discovery respectively, which are maintained loosely but effectively based on random neighbor list exchanges. Our analysis shows that InstantLeap achieves an O(1) neighbor discovery efficiency upon any playback “leap” across the media stream in streaming overlays of any size, and low messaging costs for overlay maintenance upon peer join, departure, and VCR operations. We also verify our design with large-scale simulation studies of dynamic P2P VoD systems based on real-world settings.     

Optimizing P2P streaming throughput under peer churning

High-throughput P2P streaming relies on peer selection, the strategy a peer uses to select other peer(s) as its parent(s) of streaming. Although this problem has been thoroughly investigated in the classical optimization framework under static settings, it still remains unaddressed as how to sustain throughput competitive to the optimum under highly dynamic peer churning. To accommodate such peer dynamics, we extend the classical optimization framework and propose a distributed online peer selection algorithm. This basic algorithm is further extended to a variety of settings commonly seen in operational P2P networks, such as multi-parent streaming, admission control, delay constraint, etc. We prove approximation bound of our algorithm to the optimal throughput. Through evaluation under different topological setups and peer churning sequences, we show that our solution can consistently deliver competitive throughput, which greatly outperforms its theoretical bound. This work was supported by NSF award 0643488, Vanderbilt Discovery grant, and a gift from Microsoft Research. Views and conclusions of this paper are those of authors, which should not be interpreted as representing the official policies, either expressed or implied, of the funding agencies.     

Hybrid fluid modeling approach for performance analysis of P2P live video streaming systems

In this paper a hybrid modeling approach with different modeling formalisms and solution methods is employed in order to analyze the performance of peer to peer live video streaming systems. We conjointly use queuing networks and Fluid Stochastic Petri Nets, developing several performance models to analyze the behavior of rather complex systems. The models account for: network topology, peer churn, scalability, peer average group size, peer upload bandwidth heterogeneity and video buffering, while introducing several features unconsidered in previous performance models, such as: admission control for lower contributing peers, control traffic overhead and internet traffic packet loss. Our analytical and simulation results disclose the optimum number of peers in a neighborhood, the minimum required server upload bandwidth, the optimal buffer size and the influence of control traffic overhead. The analysis reveals the existence of a performance switch-point (i.e. threshold) up to which system scaling is beneficial, whereas performance steeply decreases thereafter. Several degrees of degraded service are introduced to explore performance with arbitrary percentage of lost video frames and provide support for protocols that use scalable video coding techniques. We also find that implementation of admission control does not improve performance and may discourage new peers if waiting times for joining the system increase.     

基于在线概率的P2P网络系统动力学模型

为了更好地刻画P2P文件共享系统中节点行为的随机性,提出了一种基于在线概率的动力学模型. 首先,引入节点的在线概率来刻画节点行为的随机性,并通过分析系统中节点之间交互演化的过程,建立了基于在线概率的动力学模型. 然后,通过对模型的分析,研究了影响系统演化的多个因素,这主要通过对相关算法的具体形式分析来体现. 之后,对算法进行改进,提出了基于在线概率的节点选择算法、带宽分配算法与节点阻塞算法. 最后,通过仿真实验对模型进行了验证和分析.     

Service differentiated peer selection: an incentive mechanism for peer-to-peer media streaming

We propose a service differentiated peer selection mechanism for peer-to-peer media streaming systems. The mechanism provides flexibility and choice in peer selection to the contributors of the system, resulting in high quality streaming sessions. Free-riders are given limited options in peer selection,if any, and hence receive low quality streaming. The proposed incentive mechanism follows the characteristics of rank-order tournaments theory that considers only the relative performance of the players, and the top prizes are awarded to the winners of the tournament. Using rank-order tournaments, we analyze the behavior of utility maximizing users. Through simulation and wide-area measurement studies, we verify that the proposed incentive mechanism can provide near optimal streaming quality to the cooperative users until the bottleneck shifts from the streaming sources to the network.     

Dynamic file grouping for load balancing in streaming media clustered server systems

A dynamic file grouping strategy is presented to address the load balancing problem in streaming media clustered server systems. This strategy increases the server cluster availability by balancing the workloads among the servers within a cluster. Additionally, it improves the access hit ratio of cached files in delivery servers to alleviate the limitation of I/O bandwidth of storage node. First, the load balancing problem is formulated as a two layers semi-Markov switching state-space control process. This analytic model captures the behaviors of streaming media clustered server systems accurately, and is with constructional flexibility and scalability. Then, a policy iteration based reinforcement learning algorithm is proposed to optimize the file grouping policy online. By utilizing the features of the event-driven policy, the proposed optimization algorithm is adaptive and with less computational cost. Simulation results demonstrate the effectiveness of the proposed approach. Recommended by Editor Hyun Seok Yang. This work was supported by the National Natural Science Foundation of China under grant Nos. 60774038, 60574065, National 863 HI-TECH Research & Development Plan of China under grant Nos. 2006AA01Z114, 2008AA01A317, Natural Science Foundation of Anhui Province under grant No. 070412063, Graduate Student Innovation Foundation of USTC under grant No. KD2006036, and Science Research Development Foundation of HFUT under grant No. GDBJ2008-045. Qi Jiang received the B.S. degree in Industrial Electrical Automation from Southeast University in 1989 and the Ph.D. degree in Control Science and Engineering from University of Science and Technology of China in 2008. He is currently a Post-doc in USTC. His research interests include optimization and control of stochastic dynamic systems, and performance analysis and optimization of network communication systems. Hong-Sheng Xi received the M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics from University of Science and Technology of China in 1977. He is currently a Professor in Department of Automation, USTC. His research interests include discrete event dynamic systems, performance analysis and optimization of network communication systems, robust control, and network security. Bao-Qun Yin received the B.S. degree in Mathematics from Sichuan University in 1985, the M.S. degree in Applied Mathematics and the Ph.D. degree in Pattern Recognition and Intelligent Systems from University of Science and Technology of China in 1993 and 1998, respectively. He is currently a Professor in Department of Automation, USTC. His research interests include discrete event dynamic systems, and Markov decision processes.     

基于P2P的流媒体直播系统研究与设计

传统的流媒体系统建立在客户-服务器模式的基础上,系统伸缩性差,服务器常成为系统的瓶颈.根据当前流媒体播放系统存在的问题,设计了基于对等网络模式的流媒体直播系统,其中每个节点既是服务的消费者同时又是提供者,克服了当前流媒体系统的服务器瓶颈问题。     

P2P下的大型流媒体文件分发共享机制研究

利用CDN网络进行大型流媒体的分发会由于代理服务器存贮空间的有限性而造成应用性能的下降。基于文件分段共享方案的提出从一定程度上缓解了这种矛盾,但并没有从根本上解决它。而P2P网络的提出及基于P2P主机来构建CDN网络却为这个问题的解决提供了可行性。正是基于这一观点提出了一种在基于P2P节点主机构建的CDN网络上进行大型流文件分发共享的方案。由于是基于P2P节点主机构建,因此这种网络的存贮容量接近于“无限”,而CDN网络中节点主机的“动态性”促使在选择文件段的存贮位置及其后的流文件调度机制中都需考虑节点的“剩余寿命”。与原有的基于代理服务器构建的CDN网络上的文件段共享方案相比,本方案具有更好的性能,主要体现在具有更加稳定的系统服务容量和更高的服务完成率。模拟实验证明了这一点。     

Adaptive Zugriffskontrollverfahren

IT service providers are increasingly hosting different services of different customers on a shared IT infrastructure. While this fosters utilization of hardware infrastructure, system malfunctions, unexpected service behaviour or peak demands for one or more services may exploit resource pools (CPU, I/O, main memory, bandwidth etc.), entailing rejection of service requests. In this paper we describe models for dynamic admission control on shared infrastructures. The admission control model decides whether to accept, buffer or reject a service request based on the revenue, Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and its resource demand in comparison to the actual workload to maximize overall revenue. Simulations of a media streaming infrastructure have been used for evaluation and comparison with traditional admission control policies.     

Peer Assisted Video Streaming With Supply-Demand-Based Cache Optimization

In this paper, we consider a hybrid P2P video on-demand architecture that utilizes both the server and the peer resources for efficient transmission of popular videos. In our system architecture, each peer dedicates some cache space to store a particular segment of a video file as well as some of its upload bandwidth to serve the cached segment to other peers. Peers join the system and issue a streaming request to a control server. Control server directs the peers to streaming servers or to other peers who have the desired video segments. Control server also decides which peer should cache which video segment. Our main contribution in this paper is to determine the proper caching strategies at peers such that we minimize the average load on the streaming servers.      

3G网络中流媒体缓存系统的设计与实现

针对移动流媒体系统中无线接入网带宽窄、终端缓存空间小的特点，提出了一种适用于3G WCDMA网络的流媒体缓存体系结构WSCA，设计了基于缓存的移动流媒体调度策略WSCS，探讨了WSCA系统在实现中的技术细节。分析表明，WSCA体系与WSCS调度策略结合，能有效提高用户服务质量，降低核心网络带宽消耗，对3G流媒体应用具有一定的参考价值。     

基于软件定义网络的媒体分发网络的接入控制

针对软件定义网络（SDN）环境下的媒体分发网络的接入控制问题,提出了一种综合考虑服务节点和传输链路服务性能优化问题的接入控制方案。该方案利用SDN控制器对路由器的直接管控和对全网的感知能力,对应用层上服务节点服务性能和网络层上服务节点到用户之间的传输链路的服务性能进行联合优化,减少了链路拥塞对数据传输和用户服务质量的影响。首先,为SDN服务系统的接入控制过程建立部分可观Markov决策过程（POMDP）模型;然后,使用基于观测的随机策略作为系统的接入控制策略;最后,通过策略梯度算法对接入控制策略进行优化,求解出模型的最优策略。仿真结果表明,与尽力而为的服务策略相比,基于POMDP模型的最优接入控制策略使系统性能提高了10%,验证了所提方法的有效性。     

面向网格的时移电视系统研究

基于网格技术提出了时移电视服务系统(GridTVOD,Time-shifted TV on demand based on grid).在GridTVOD系统中,系统组织基于Globus MDS,将视频服务器和服务节点组织为流媒体服务网格,视频数据传输采用P2P和Patching相结合,用户作为网格节点,在享受服务时,也作为服务端为其它节点提供服务.整个系统具有如下特点:1)采用流合并机制,有效地减少媒体服务器提供的基流数;2)采用分布式控制协议,系统具有良好的可扩展性;3)利用网格技术,为系统组织提供安全、有效的保障.     

Cost-based cache replacement and server selection for multimedia proxy across wireless Internet

Multimedia proxy plays an important role in multimedia streaming over wireless Internet. Since wireless network exhibits different characteristics from the Internet, multimedia proxy caching over wireless Internet faces additional challenges. In this paper, we present a study of cache replacement for a single server and server selection for multiple servers across wireless Internet. By considering multiple objectives of multimedia proxy, we design a unified cost metric to measure proxy performance in wireless Internet. Based on the defined unified cost metric, we propose a novel replacement algorithm for single-server and a new server-selection policy for multiple servers to improve the end-to-end performance such as throughput, media quality, and start-up latency. To effectively handle errors occurred on wireless link, channel-adaptive unequal error protection is deployed according to distinct quality of service requirements of layered or scalable media. Simulation results demonstrate that our approaches achieve significantly better performance than the known cache-replacement algorithms and sever selection schemes, respectively.     

Distributed admission control for anycast flows

Anycasting has recently become an important research topic, especially for replicated servers. With anycasting, applications can request the "nearest" server for provision of desired (multimedia) service. In this paper, we study efficient distributed admission control (DAC) for anycast flows. We focus on algorithms that perform destination selection and efficient path establishment. Taking advantage of anycasting, our distributed algorithms differ from each other in their dependence on system status information. Performance data obtained through mathematical analysis and simulations show that, in terms of admission probabilities, DAC systems that are based on local status information have performance levels close to those that utilize global and dynamic status information. This renders our DAC algorithms useful not only for the network layer, but also for the application layer admission control for anycast flows.