Characterisation of real GPRS traffic with analytical tools

With GPRS and UMTS networks lunched, wireless multimedia services are commercially becoming the most attractive applications next to voice. Because of the nature of bursty, packet-switched schemes and multiple data rates, the traditional Erlang approach and Poisson models for characterising voice-centric services traffic are not suitable for studying wireless multimedia services traffic. Therefore, research on the characterisation of wireless multimedia services traffic is very challenging. The typical reference for the study of wireless multimedia services traffic is wired Internet services traffic. However, because of the differences in network protocol, bandwidth, and QoS requirements between wired and wireless services, their traffic characterisations may not be similar. Wired network Internet traffic shows self-similarity, long-range dependence and its file sizes exhibit heavy-tailedness. This paper reports the use of existing tools to analyse real GPRS traffic data to establish whether wireless multimedia services traffic have similar properties as wired Internet services traffic

Efficient memory management in VOD disk array servers usingPer-Storage-Device buffering

We present a buffering technique that reduces video-on-demand server memory requirements in more than one order of magnitude. This technique, Per-Storage-Device Buffering (PSDB), is based on the allocation of a fixed number of buffers per storage device, as opposed to existing solutions based on per-stream buffering allocation. The combination of this technique with disk array servers is studied in detail, as well as the influence of Variable Bit Streams. We also present an interleaved data placement strategy, Constant Time Length Declustering, that results in optimal performance in the service of VBR streams. PSDB is evaluated by extensive simulation of a disk array server model that incorporates a simulation based admission test.This research was supported in part by the National R&D Program of Spain, Project Number TIC97-0438.Publicad

Using Digital Filtration for Hurst Parameter Estimation

We present a new method to estimate the Hurst parameter. The method exploits the form of the autocorrelation function for second-order self-similar processes and is based on one-pass digital filtration. We compare the performance and properties of the new method with that of the most common methods

A method for QoS differentiation in DiffServ networks based on the long-term properties of a video stream

This paper presents a method for adjusting the level of services offered by the network with quality of service differentiation for the long-term characteristics of a transmitted video stream. The Drop Precedence (DP) field located in the header of IP packet for this purpose was used.The DP field is set dynamically, based on the measurement of the long-term properties of a source video stream entering the network. The level of traffic perturbations present in a stream is expressed by the Hurst parameter, and then mapped to the size of a priority encoded in the DP field. By that means, an adaptive differentiation of the preferences of individual streams within the same AF PHB class of service is implemented, depending on the size of perturbations existing in the flow. The use of the long-term Hurst parameter, as a criterion of classification, makes the treatment of packets marked with a given priority value does the job well on a larger time scale

The measurement and modeling of a P2P streaming video service

Most of the work on grid technology in the video area has been generally restricted to aspects of resource scheduling and replica management. The traffic of such a service has a lot of characteristics in common with that of the traditional video service. However the architecture and user behavior in grid networks are quite different from those of the traditional Internet. Considering the potential of grid networks and video sharing services, measuring and analyzing P2P IPTV traffic are important and fundamental works in the field of grid networks. This paper investigates the features of PPLive, the most popular streaming service in China and based on P2P technology. Through monitoring and analyzing PPLive traffic streams, the characteristics of P2P streaming services have been studied. The analyses are carried out in respect of bearing protocols, geographical distribution and the self-similarity properties of the traffic. A streaming service traffic model has been created and verified with the simulation. The simulation results indicate that the proposed streaming service traffic model complies well with the real IPTV streaming service. It can also function as a step towards studying video-sharing services on grids

Queuing Systems with Multiple FBM-Based Traffic Models

A multiple fractional Brownian motion (FBM)-based traffic model is considered. Various lower bounds for the overflow probability of the associated queueing system are obtained. Based on a probabilistic bound for the busy period of an ATM queueing system associated with a multiple FBM-based input traffic, a minimal dynamic buffer allocation function (DBAF) is obtained and a DBAF-allocation algorithm is designed. The purpose is to create an upper bound for the queueing system associated with the traffic. This upper bound, called a DBAF, is a function of time, dynamically bouncing with the traffic. An envelope process associated with the multiple FBM-based traffic model is introduced and used to estimate the queue size of the queueing system associated with that traffic model

Performance evaluation of an open distributed platform for realistic traffic generation

Network researchers have dedicated a notable part of their efforts to the area of modeling traffic and to the implementation of efficient traffic generators. We feel that there is a strong demand for traffic generators capable to reproduce realistic traffic patterns according to theoretical models and at the same time with high performance. This work presents an open distributed platform for traffic generation that we called distributed internet traffic generator (D-ITG), capable of producing traffic (network, transport and application layer) at packet level and of accurately replicating appropriate stochastic processes for both inter departure time (IDT) and packet size (PS) random variables. We implemented two different versions of our distributed generator. In the first one, a log server is in charge of recording the information transmitted by senders and receivers and these communications are based either on TCP or UDP. In the other one, senders and receivers make use of the MPI library. In this work a complete performance comparison among the centralized version and the two distributed versions of D-ITG is presented

QuIVeR: A class of interactive video retrieval protocols

Video-on-demand (VOD) servers need to be efficiently designed in order to support a large number of users viewing the same or different videos at different rates. In this paper, we propose the Quasi-static Interactive Video Retrieval (QuIVeR) Protocol for this purpose when disk-array based video servers are used. Five variations - QuIVeR-1, QuIVeR-2, QuIVeR-3, QuIVeR-4 and QuIVeR-5 - are presented. The properties as well as the relative merits and demerits of each protocol are discussed. The protocols require no buffer at the server and hence, all retrieved segments are immediately transmitted to the appropriate users. The amount of buffer required at each user's set-top box is reduced to two video segments. Guarantees are provided for the avoidance of video starvation as well as buffer overflow at each user's set-top box. Numerical results, obtained using data from an MPEG coded `Star Wars' video, are provided.published_or_final_versio