Signaling For Multimedia Conferencing in Stand-Alone Mobile Ad Hoc Networks

Mobile ad hoc networks (MANETs) are infrastructure-less and can be set up anywhere, anytime. They can host a wide range of applications in rescue operations, military, private, and commercial settings. Multimedia conferencing is the basis of a wealth of “killer†applications that can be deployed in MANETs. Some examples are audio/video conferencing, multiplayer games, and online public debating. Signaling is the nerve center of multimedia conferences—it establishes, modifies, and tears down conferences. This paper focuses on signaling for multimedia conferences in MANETs. We review the state of the art and propose a novel architecture based on application-level clusters. Our validation employed SIP as the implementation technology and OPNET as our simulation tool. Our clusters are constructed dynamically and the nodes that act as cluster heads are elected based on their capabilities. The capabilities are published and discovered using a simple application-level protocol. The architectural principles and the clustering operations are discussed. Our SIP-based implementation is also presented along with the performance evaluation. Keywords: MANET, SIP-technology, OPNET-simulation tool, cluste

The state of peer-to-peer network simulators

Networking research often relies on simulation in order to test and evaluate new ideas. An important requirement of this process is that results must be reproducible so that other researchers can replicate, validate and extend existing work. We look at the landscape of simulators for research in peer-to-peer (P2P) networks by conducting a survey of a combined total of over 280 papers from before and after 2007 (the year of the last survey in this area), and comment on the large quantity of research using bespoke, closed-source simulators. We propose a set of criteria that P2P simulators should meet, and poll the P2P research community for their agreement. We aim to drive the community towards performing their experiments on simulators that allow for others to validate their results

Algorithms for advance bandwidth reservation in media production networks

Media production generally requires many geographically distributed actors (e.g., production houses, broadcasters, advertisers) to exchange huge amounts of raw video and audio data. Traditional distribution techniques, such as dedicated point-to-point optical links, are highly inefficient in terms of installation time and cost. To improve efficiency, shared media production networks that connect all involved actors over a large geographical area, are currently being deployed. The traffic in such networks is often predictable, as the timing and bandwidth requirements of data transfers are generally known hours or even days in advance. As such, the use of advance bandwidth reservation (AR) can greatly increase resource utilization and cost efficiency. In this paper, we propose an Integer Linear Programming formulation of the bandwidth scheduling problem, which takes into account the specific characteristics of media production networks, is presented. Two novel optimization algorithms based on this model are thoroughly evaluated and compared by means of in-depth simulation results