77 research outputs found
Evaluation of unidirectional background push content download services for the delivery of television programs
Este trabajo de tesis presenta los servicios de descarga de contenido en modo push como un
mecanismo eficiente para el envío de contenido de televisión pre-producido sobre redes de
difusión. Hoy en día, los operadores de red dedican una cantidad considerable de recursos
de red a la entrega en vivo de contenido televisivo, tanto sobre redes de difusión como
sobre conexiones unidireccionales. Esta oferta de servicios responde únicamente a
requisitos comerciales: disponer de los contenidos televisivos en cualquier momento y
lugar. Sin embargo, desde un punto de vista estrictamente académico, el envío en vivo es
únicamente un requerimiento para el contenido en vivo, no para contenidos que ya han sido
producidos con anterioridad a su emisión. Más aún, la difusión es solo eficiente cuando el
contenido es suficientemente popular.
Los servicios bajo estudio en esta tesis utilizan capacidad residual en redes de difusión para
enviar contenido pre-producido para que se almacene en los equipos de usuario. La
propuesta se justifica únicamente por su eficiencia. Por un lado, genera valor de recursos de
red que no se aprovecharían de otra manera. Por otro lado, realiza la entrega de contenidos
pre-producidos y populares de la manera más eficiente: sobre servicios de descarga de
contenidos en difusión.
Los resultados incluyen modelos para la popularidad y la duración de contenidos, valiosos
para cualquier trabajo de investigación basados en la entrega de contenidos televisivos.
Además, la tesis evalúa la capacidad residual disponible en redes de difusión, por medio de
estudios empíricos. Después, estos resultados son utilizados en simulaciones que evalúan
las prestaciones de los servicios propuestos en escenarios diferentes y para aplicaciones
diferentes. La evaluación demuestra que este tipo de servicios son un recurso muy útil para
la entrega de contenido televisivo.This thesis dissertation presents background push Content Download Services as an
efficient mechanism to deliver pre-produced television content through existing broadcast
networks. Nowadays, network operators dedicate a considerable amount of network
resources to live streaming live, through both broadcast and unicast connections. This
service offering responds solely to commercial requirements: Content must be available
anytime and anywhere. However, from a strictly academic point of view, live streaming is
only a requirement for live content and not for pre-produced content. Moreover,
broadcasting is only efficient when the content is sufficiently popular.
The services under study in this thesis use residual capacity in broadcast networks to push
popular, pre-produced content to storage capacity in customer premises equipment. The
proposal responds only to efficiency requirements. On one hand, it creates value from
network resources otherwise unused. On the other hand, it delivers popular pre-produced
content in the most efficient way: through broadcast download services.
The results include models for the popularity and the duration of television content,
valuable for any research work dealing with file-based delivery of television content. Later,
the thesis evaluates the residual capacity available in broadcast networks through empirical
studies. These results are used in simulations to evaluate the performance of background
push content download services in different scenarios and for different applications. The
evaluation proves that this kind of services can become a great asset for the delivery of
television contentFraile Gil, F. (2013). Evaluation of unidirectional background push content download services for the delivery of television programs [Tesis doctoral no publicada]. Universitat Politècnica de València. https://doi.org/10.4995/Thesis/10251/31656TESI
A cross-layer middleware architecture for time and safety critical applications in MANETs
Mobile Ad hoc Networks (MANETs) can be deployed instantaneously and adaptively, making them highly suitable to military, medical and disaster-response scenarios. Using real-time applications for provision of instantaneous and dependable communications, media streaming, and device control in these scenarios is a growing research field. Realising timing requirements in packet delivery is
essential to safety-critical real-time applications that are both delay- and loss-sensitive.
Safety of these applications is compromised by packet loss, both on the network and by the applications themselves that will drop packets exceeding delay bounds. However, the provision of this required Quality of Service (QoS) must overcome issues relating to the lack of reliable existing infrastructure, conservation of safety-certified functionality. It must also overcome issues relating to the layer-2 dynamics with causal factors including hidden transmitters and fading channels. This thesis proposes that bounded maximum delay and safety-critical application support can be achieved by using cross-layer middleware. Such an approach benefits from the use of established protocols without requiring modifications to safety-certified ones. This research proposes ROAM: a novel, adaptive and scalable cross-layer Real-time Optimising Ad hoc Middleware framework for the provision and maintenance of performance guarantees in self-configuring MANETs. The ROAM framework is designed to be scalable to new optimisers and MANET protocols and requires no modifications of protocol functionality. Four original contributions are proposed: (1) ROAM, a middleware entity abstracts information from the protocol stack using application programming interfaces (APIs) and that implements optimisers to monitor and autonomously tune conditions at protocol layers in response to dynamic network conditions. The cross-layer approach is MANET protocol generic, using minimal imposition on the protocol stack, without protocol modification requirements. (2) A horizontal handoff optimiser that responds to time-varying link quality to ensure optimal and most robust channel usage. (3) A distributed contention reduction optimiser that reduces channel contention and related delay, in response to detection of the presence of a hidden transmitter. (4) A feasibility evaluation of the ROAM architecture to bound maximum delay and jitter in a comprehensive range of ns2-MIRACLE simulation scenarios that demonstrate independence from the key causes of network dynamics:
application setting and MANET configuration; including mobility or topology. Experimental results show that ROAM can constrain end-to-end delay, jitter and packet loss, to support real-time applications with critical timing requirements
Distributed multimedia systems
A distributed multimedia system (DMS) is an integrated communication, computing, and information system that enables the processing, management, delivery, and presentation of synchronized multimedia information with quality-of-service guarantees. Multimedia information may include discrete media data, such as text, data, and images, and continuous media data, such as video and audio. Such a system enhances human communications by exploiting both visual and aural senses and provides the ultimate flexibility in work and entertainment, allowing one to collaborate with remote participants, view movies on demand, access on-line digital libraries from the desktop, and so forth. In this paper, we present a technical survey of a DMS. We give an overview of distributed multimedia systems, examine the fundamental concept of digital media, identify the applications, and survey the important enabling technologies.published_or_final_versio
Quality-oriented adaptation scheme for multimedia streaming in local broadband multi-service IP networks
The research reported in this thesis proposes, designs and tests the Quality-Oriented Adaptation Scheme (QOAS), an application-level adaptive scheme that offers high quality
multimedia services to home residences and business premises via local broadband IP-networks in the presence of other traffic of different types. QOAS uses a novel client-located grading scheme that maps some network-related parameters’ values, variations and variation patterns (e.g. delay, jitter, loss rate) to application-level scores that describe the quality of delivery. This grading scheme
also involves an objective metric that estimates the end-user perceived quality, increasing its effectiveness. A server-located arbiter takes content and rate adaptation decisions based on these quality scores, which is the only information sent via feedback by the clients.
QOAS has been modelled, implemented and tested through simulations and an instantiation of it has been realized in a prototype system. The performance was assessed in terms of estimated end-user perceived quality, network utilisation, loss rate and number of customers served by a fixed infrastructure. The influence of variations in the parameters used by QOAS and of the networkrelated
characteristics was studied. The scheme’s adaptive reaction was tested with background traffic of different type, size and variation patterns and in the presence of concurrent multimedia streaming processes subject to user-interactions. The results show that the performance of QOAS
was very close to that of an ideal adaptive scheme. In comparison with other adaptive schemes QOAS allows for a significant increase in the number of simultaneous users while maintaining a good end-user perceived quality. These results are verified by a set of subjective tests that have been performed on viewers using a prototype system
Routing and dimensioning of 3G multi-service networks
Mémoire numérisé par la Direction des bibliothèques de l'Université de Montréal
Real-time communications over switched Ethernet supporting dynamic QoS management
Doutoramento em Engenharia InformáticaDurante a última década temos assistido a um crescente aumento na utilização
de sistemas embutidos para suporte ao controlo de processos, de sistemas
robóticos, de sistemas de transportes e veículos e até de sistemas domóticos
e eletrodomésticos. Muitas destas aplicações são críticas em termos de
segurança de pessoas e bens e requerem um alto nível de determinismo com
respeito aos instantes de execução das respectivas tarefas. Além disso, a implantação
destes sistemas pode estar sujeita a limitações estruturais, exigindo
ou beneficiando de uma configuração distribuída, com vários subsistemas
computacionais espacialmente separados. Estes subsistemas, apesar de
espacialmente separados, são cooperativos e dependem de uma infraestrutura
de comunicação para atingir os objectivos da aplicação e, por consequência,
também as transacções efectuadas nesta infraestrutura estão sujeitas às
restrições temporais definidas pela aplicação.
As aplicações que executam nestes sistemas distribuídos, chamados
networked embedded systems (NES), podem ser altamente complexas e
heterogéneas, envolvendo diferentes tipos de interacções com diferentes
requisitos e propriedades. Um exemplo desta heterogeneidade é o modelo de
activação da comunicação entre os subsistemas que pode ser desencadeada
periodicamente de acordo com uma base de tempo global (time-triggered),
como sejam os fluxos de sistemas de controlo distribuído, ou ainda ser
desencadeada como consequência de eventos assíncronos da aplicação
(event-triggered). Independentemente das características do tráfego ou do
seu modelo de activação, é de extrema importância que a plataforma de
comunicações disponibilize as garantias de cumprimento dos requisitos da
aplicação ao mesmo tempo que proporciona uma integração simples dos
vários tipos de tráfego.
Uma outra propriedade que está a emergir e a ganhar importância no seio
dos NES é a flexibilidade. Esta propiedade é realçada pela necessidade de
reduzir os custos de instalação, manutenção e operação dos sistemas. Neste
sentido, o sistema é dotado da capacidade para adaptar o serviço fornecido à
aplicação aos respectivos requisitos instantâneos, acompanhando a evolução
do sistema e proporcionando uma melhor e mais racional utilização dos
recursos disponíveis.
No entanto, maior flexibilidade operacional é igualmente sinónimo de
maior complexidade derivada da necessidade de efectuar a alocação dinâmica
dos recursos, acabando também por consumir recursos adicionais no sistema.
A possibilidade de modificar dinâmicamente as caracteristicas do sistema
também acarreta uma maior complexidade na fase de desenho e especificação.
O aumento do número de graus de liberdade suportados faz aumentar
o espaço de estados do sistema, dificultando a uma pre-análise. No sentido de
conter o aumento de complexidade são necessários modelos que representem
a dinâmica do sistema e proporcionem uma gestão optimizada e justa dos
recursos com base em parâmetros de qualidade de serviço (QdS).
É nossa tese que as propriedades de flexibilidade, pontualidade e gestão
dinâmica de QdS podem ser integradas numa rede switched Ethernet (SE),
tirando partido do baixo custo, alta largura de banda e fácil implantação. Nesta
dissertação é proposto um protocolo, Flexible Time-Triggered communication
over Switched Ethernet (FTT-SE), que suporta as propriedades desejadas e
que ultrapassa as limitações das redes SE para aplicações de tempo-real tais
como a utilização de filas FIFO, a existência de poucos níveis de prioridade
e a pouca capacidade de gestão individualizada dos fluxos. O protocolo
baseia-se no paradigma FTT, que genericamente define a arquitectura de uma
pilha protocolar sobre o acesso ao meio de uma rede partilhada, impondo
desta forma determinismo temporal, juntamente com a capacidade para
reconfiguração e adaptação dinâmica da rede. São ainda apresentados vários
modelos de distribuição da largura de banda da rede de acordo com o nível de
QdS especificado por cada serviço utilizador da rede.
Esta dissertação expõe a motivação para a criação do protocolo FTT-SE,
apresenta uma descrição do mesmo, bem como a análise de algumas das
suas propiedades mais relevantes. São ainda apresentados e comparados
modelos de distribuição da QdS. Finalmente, são apresentados dois casos de
aplicações que sustentam a validade da tese acima mencionada.During the last decade we have witnessed a massive deployment of embedded
systems on a wide applications range, from industrial automation to process
control, avionics, cars or even robotics. Many of these applications have an
inherently high level of criticality, having to perform tasks within tight temporal
constraints. Additionally, the configuration of such systems is often distributed,
with several computing nodes that rely on a communication infrastructure to
cooperate and achieve the application global goals. Therefore, the communications
are also subject to the same temporal constraints set by the application
requirements.
Many applications relying on such networked embedded systems (NES)
are complex and heterogeneous, comprehending different activities with different
requirements and properties. For example, the communication between
subsystems may follow a strict temporal synchronization with respect to a
global time-base (time-triggered), like in a distributed feedback control loop,
or it may be issued asynchronously upon the occurrence of events (eventtriggered).
Regardless of the traffic characteristics and its activation model, it
is of paramount importance having a communication framework that provides
seamless integration of heterogeneous traffic sources while guaranteeing the
application requirements.
Another property that has been emerging as important for NES design and
operation is flexibility. The need to reduce installation and operational costs,
while facilitating maintenance is promoting a more rational use of the available
resources at run-time, exploring the ability to tune service parameters as the
system evolves.
However, such operational flexibility comes with the cost of increasing the
complexity of the system to handle the dynamic resource management, which
on the other hand demands the allocation of additional system resources.
Moreover, the capacity to dynamically modify the system properties also
causes a higher complexity when designing and specifying the system, since
the operational state-space increases with the degrees of flexibility of the
system.
Therefore, in order to bound this complexity appropriate operational models
are needed to handle the system dynamics and carry on an efficient and
fair resource management strategy based on quality of service (QoS) metrics.
This thesis states that the properties of flexibility and timeliness as needed
for dynamic QoS management can be provided to switched Ethernet based
systems. Switched Ethernet, although initially designed for general purpose
Internet access and file transfers, is becoming widely used in NES-based applications.
However, COTS switched Ethernet is insufficient regarding the needs
for real-time predictability and for supporting the aforementioned properties due
the use of FIFO queues too few priority levels and for stream-level management
capabilities. In this dissertation we propose a protocol to overcome those
limitations, namely the Flexible Time-Triggered communication over Switched
Ethernet (FTT-SE). The protocol is based on the FTT paradigm that generically
defines a protocol architecture suitable to enforce real-time determinism on a
communication network supporting the desired flexibility properties.
This dissertation addresses the motivation for FTT-SE, describing the
protocol as well as its schedulability analysis. It additionally covers the resource
distribution topic, where several distribution models are proposed to manage
the resource capacity among the competing services and while considering
the QoS level requirements of each service. A couple of application cases are
shown that support the aforementioned thesis
Quality-of-service management in IP networks
Quality of Service (QoS) in Internet Protocol (IF) Networks has been the subject of
active research over the past two decades. Integrated Services (IntServ) and
Differentiated Services (DiffServ) QoS architectures have emerged as proposed
standards for resource allocation in IF Networks. These two QoS architectures
support the need for multiple traffic queuing systems to allow for resource
partitioning for heterogeneous applications making use of the networks. There have
been a number of specifications or proposals for the number of traffic queuing
classes (Class of Service (CoS)) that will support integrated services in IF Networks,
but none has provided verification in the form of analytical or empirical investigation
to prove that its specification or proposal will be optimum.
Despite the existence of the two standard QoS architectures and the large volume of
research work that has been carried out on IF QoS, its deployment still remains
elusive in the Internet. This is not unconnected with the complexities associated with
some aspects of the standard QoS architectures. [Continues.
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