The Effect of Video Caching on Network Resource Planning - A Real-Case Study

Traffic Engineering is one of the building blocks for a correct network planning. Internet Service Providers are always trying to fulfill the user Quality of Experience (QoE). However, each technological advance brings new services to the user, with new challenges to be solved to maintain the QoE

The growing complexity of content delivery networks: Challenges and implications for the Internet ecosystem

Since the commercialization of the Internet, content and related applications, including video streaming, news, advertisements, and social interaction have moved online. It is broadly recognized that the rise of all of these different types of content (static and dynamic, and increasingly multimedia) has been one of the main forces behind the phenomenal growth of the Internet, and its emergence as essential infrastructure for how individuals across the globe gain access to the content sources they want. To accelerate the delivery of diverse content in the Internet and to provide commercial-grade performance for video delivery and the Web, Content Delivery Networks (CDNs) were introduced. This paper describes the current CDN ecosystem and the forces that have driven its evolution. We outline the different CDN architectures and consider their relative strengths and weaknesses. Our analysis highlights the role of location, the growing complexity of the CDN ecosystem, and their relationship to and implications for interconnection markets.EC/H2020/679158/EU/Resolving the Tussle in the Internet: Mapping, Architecture, and Policy Making/ResolutioNe

Technical analysis of content placement algorithms for content delivery network in cloud

Content placement algorithm is an integral part of the cloud-based content de-livery network. They are responsible for selecting a precise content to be re-posited over the surrogate servers distributed over a geographical region. Although various works are being already carried out in this sector, there are loopholes connected to most of the work, which doesn't have much disclosure. It is already known that quality of service, quality of experience, and the cost is always an essential objective targeting to be improved in existing work. Still, there are various other aspects and underlying reasons which are equally important from the design aspect. Therefore, this paper contributes towards reviewing the existing approaches of content placement algorithm over cloud-based content delivery network targeting to explore open-end re-search issues

Effectiveness of Cloud Services for Scientific and VoD Applications

Cloud platforms have emerged as the primary data warehouse for a variety of applications, such as DropBox, iCloud, Google Music, etc. These applications allow users to store data in the cloud and access it from anywhere in the world. Commercial clouds are also well suited for providing high-end servers for rent to execute applications that require computation resources sporadically. Cloud users only pay for the time they actually use the hardware and the amount of data that is transmitted to and from the cloud, which has the potential to be more cost effective than purchasing, hosting, and maintaining dedicated hardware. In this dissertation, we look into the efficiency of the cloud Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) model for two real time high bandwidth applications: A scientific application of short-term weather forecasting and Video on Demand services. We show that, cloud services are efficient in both network and computation for real time scientific application of weather forecasting. We present a related list reordering approach, which reduces the network traffic of serving videos from VoD services and improve the efficiency of caches deployed to serve them. Also, we present transcoding policies to reduce the transcoding workload and present prediction models to maintain performance of providing ABR streaming of VoD services at the client with online transcoding in the cloud

QOE-AWARE CONTENT DISTRIBUTION SYSTEMS FOR ADAPTIVE BITRATE VIDEO STREAMING

A prodigious increase in video streaming content along with a simultaneous rise in end system capabilities has led to the proliferation of adaptive bit rate video streaming users in the Internet. Today, video streaming services range from Video-on-Demand services like traditional IP TV to more recent technologies such as immersive 3D experiences for live sports events. In order to meet the demands of these services, the multimedia and networking research community continues to strive toward efficiently delivering high quality content across the Internet while also trying to minimize content storage and delivery costs. The introduction of flexible and adaptable technologies such as compute and storage clouds, Network Function Virtualization and Software Defined Networking continue to fuel content provider revenue. Today, content providers such as Google and Facebook build their own Software-Defined WANs to efficiently serve millions of users worldwide, while NetFlix partners with ISPs such as ATT (using OpenConnect) and cloud providers such as Amazon EC2 to serve their content and manage the delivery of several petabytes of high-quality video content for millions of subscribers at a global scale, respectively. In recent years, the unprecedented growth of video traffic in the Internet has seen several innovative systems such as Software Defined Networks and Information Centric Networks as well as inventive protocols such as QUIC, in an effort to keep up with the effects of this remarkable growth. While most existing systems continue to sub-optimally satisfy user requirements, future video streaming systems will require optimal management of storage and bandwidth resources that are several orders of magnitude larger than what is implemented today. Moreover, Quality-of-Experience metrics are becoming increasingly fine-grained in order to accurately quantify diverse content and consumer needs. In this dissertation, we design and investigate innovative adaptive bit rate video streaming systems and analyze the implications of recent technologies on traditional streaming approaches using real-world experimentation methods. We provide useful insights for current and future content distribution network administrators to tackle Quality-of-Experience dilemmas and serve high quality video content to several users at a global scale. In order to show how Quality-of-Experience can benefit from core network architectural modifications, we design and evaluate prototypes for video streaming in Information Centric Networks and Software-Defined Networks. We also present a real-world, in-depth analysis of adaptive bitrate video streaming over protocols such as QUIC and MPQUIC to show how end-to-end protocol innovation can contribute to substantial Quality-of-Experience benefits for adaptive bit rate video streaming systems. We investigate a cross-layer approach based on QUIC and observe that application layer-based information can be successfully used to determine transport layer parameters for ABR streaming applications

Revisiting core traffic growth in the presence of expanding CDNs

Traffic growth forecasts announce a dramatic future for core networks, struggling to keep the pace of traffic augmentation. Internet traffic growth primarily stems from the proliferation of cloud services and the massive amounts of data distributed by the content delivery networks (CDNs) hosting these services. In this paper, we investigate the evolution of core traffic in the presence of growing CDNs. Expanding the capacities of existing data centers (DCs) directly translates the forecasted compound-annual-growth-rate (CAGR) of user traffic to the CAGR of carried core link traffic. On the other hand, expanding CDNs by building new geographically dispersed DCs can significantly reduce the predicted core traffic growth rates by placing content closer to the users. However, reducing DC-to-user traffic by building new DCs comes at a trade-off with increasing inter-DC content synchronization traffic. Thus, the resulting overall core traffic growth will depend on the types of services supported and their associated synchronization requirements. In this paper, we present a long-term evolution study to assess the implications of different CDN expansion strategies on core network traffic growth considering a mix of services in proportions and growth rates corresponding to well-known traffic forecasts. Our simulations indicate that CDNs may have significant incentive to build more DCs, depending on the service types they offer, and that current alarming traffic predictions may be somewhat overestimated in core networks in the presence of expanding CDNs. (C) 2019 The Authors. Published by Elsevier B.V.The research leading to these results has received funding from the European Commission for the H2020-ICT-2016-2 METRO-HAUL project (G.A. 761727) and it has been partially funded by the Spanish national project ONOFRE-2(TEC2017-84423-C3-1-P, MINECO/AEI/FEDER, UE)

Ontwerp en evaluatie van content distributie netwerken voor multimediale streaming diensten.

Traditionele Internetgebaseerde diensten voor het verspreiden van bestanden, zoals Web browsen en het versturen van e-mails, worden aangeboden via één centrale server. Meer recente netwerkdiensten zoals interactieve digitale televisie of video-op-aanvraag vereisen echter hoge kwaliteitsgaranties (QoS), zoals een lage en constante netwerkvertraging, en verbruiken een aanzienlijke hoeveelheid bandbreedte op het netwerk. Architecturen met één centrale server kunnen deze garanties moeilijk bieden en voldoen daarom niet meer aan de hoge eisen van de volgende generatie multimediatoepassingen. In dit onderzoek worden daarom nieuwe netwerkarchitecturen bestudeerd, die een dergelijke dienstkwaliteit kunnen ondersteunen. Zowel peer-to-peer mechanismes, zoals bij het uitwisselen van muziekbestanden tussen eindgebruikers, als servergebaseerde oplossingen, zoals gedistribueerde caches en content distributie netwerken (CDN's), komen aan bod. Afhankelijk van de bestudeerde dienst en de gebruikte netwerktechnologieën en -architectuur, worden gecentraliseerde algoritmen voor netwerkontwerp voorgesteld. Deze algoritmen optimaliseren de plaatsing van de servers of netwerkcaches en bepalen de nodige capaciteit van de servers en netwerklinks. De dynamische plaatsing van de aangeboden bestanden in de verschillende netwerkelementen wordt aangepast aan de heersende staat van het netwerk en aan de variërende aanvraagpatronen van de eindgebruikers. Serverselectie, herroutering van aanvragen en het verspreiden van de belasting over het hele netwerk komen hierbij ook aan bod

Traffic Management of Video on Demand: An Analysis of Investments for Improving the End User's Quality of Experience:

The current escalation in user demand for web contents, particularly Video on Demand (VoD), is causing a continu‐ ing increase in both the types of web traffic and the volumes of data transmitted. The greater demand arises from the new means of communication employed by individuals and companies, as well as the development of readily usable applications distributed by 'app stores'. In this paper, we suggest that the stakeholders of a VoD frame‐ work, the Content Providers (CPs) and the Internet Service Providers (telcos/ISPs), should guarantee a solid Quality of Experience (QoE) to the end user through two potential investments: either in ultra-broadband (UBB) or in the technologies for the acceleration of web content, known as the Content Delivery Network (CDN) and Transparent Internet Caching (TIC). The aim of the paper is to analyse these investments in terms of providers' profits. The base hypothesis is that the investments are subsidized by the CPs, which, in recent years, have indeed been directing a large part of their revenues towards investments in network infrastructure