On the Load Balancing of Edge Computing Resources for On-Line Video Delivery

Online video broadcasting platforms are distributed, complex, cloud oriented, scalable, micro-service-based systems that are intended to provide over-the-top and live content to audience in scattered geographic locations. Due to the nature of cloud VM hosting costs, the subscribers are usually served under limited resources in order to minimize delivery budget. However, operations including transcoding require high-computational capacity and any disturbance in supplying requested demand might result in quality of experience (QoE) deterioration. For any online delivery deployment, understanding user's QoE plays a crucial role for rebalancing cloud resources. In this paper, a methodology for estimating QoE is provided for a scalable cloud-based online video platform. The model will provide an adeptness guideline regarding limited cloud resources and relate computational capacity, memory, transcoding and throughput capability, and finally latency competence of the cloud service to QoE. Scalability and efficiency of the system are optimized through reckoning sufficient number of VMs and containers to satisfy the user requests even on peak demand durations with minimum number of VMs. Both horizontal and vertical scaling strategies (including VM migration) are modeled to cover up availability and reliability of intermediate and edge content delivery network cache nodes

On the Load Balancing of Edge Computing resources for on-line video delivery

Online video broadcasting platforms are distributed, complex, cloud oriented, scalable, micro-service based systems that are intended to provide Over-The-Top (OTT) and live content to audience in scattered geographic locations. Due to the nature of cloud VM hosting costs, the subscribers are usually served under limited resources in order to minimize delivery budget. However, operations including transcoding require high computational capacity and any disturbance in supplying requested demand might result in Quality of Experience (QoE) deterioration. For any online delivery deployment, understanding users QoE plays a crucial role for rebalancing cloud resources. In this work, a methodology for estimating Quality of Experience is provided for a scalable cloud based online video platform. The model will provide an adeptness guideline regarding limited cloud resources and relate computational capacity, memory, transcoding and throughput capability and finally latency competence of the cloud service to QoE. Scalability and efficiency of the system are optimized through reckoning sufficient number of VMs and containers to satisfy the user requests even on peak demand durations with minimum number of VMs. Both horizontal and vertical scaling strategies (including VM migration) are modelled to cover up availability and reliability of intermediate and edge Content Delivery Network (CDN) cache node

SDN/NFV-enabled satellite communications networks: opportunities, scenarios and challenges

In the context of next generation 5G networks, the satellite industry is clearly committed to revisit and revamp the role of satellite communications. As major drivers in the evolution of (terrestrial) fixed and mobile networks, Software Defined Networking (SDN) and Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) technologies are also being positioned as central technology enablers towards improved and more flexible integration of satellite and terrestrial segments, providing satellite network further service innovation and business agility by advanced network resources management techniques. Through the analysis of scenarios and use cases, this paper provides a description of the benefits that SDN/NFV technologies can bring into satellite communications towards 5G. Three scenarios are presented and analysed to delineate different potential improvement areas pursued through the introduction of SDN/NFV technologies in the satellite ground segment domain. Within each scenario, a number of use cases are developed to gain further insight into specific capabilities and to identify the technical challenges stemming from them.Peer ReviewedPostprint (author's final draft

Datacenter Traffic Control: Understanding Techniques and Trade-offs

Datacenters provide cost-effective and flexible access to scalable compute and storage resources necessary for today's cloud computing needs. A typical datacenter is made up of thousands of servers connected with a large network and usually managed by one operator. To provide quality access to the variety of applications and services hosted on datacenters and maximize performance, it deems necessary to use datacenter networks effectively and efficiently. Datacenter traffic is often a mix of several classes with different priorities and requirements. This includes user-generated interactive traffic, traffic with deadlines, and long-running traffic. To this end, custom transport protocols and traffic management techniques have been developed to improve datacenter network performance. In this tutorial paper, we review the general architecture of datacenter networks, various topologies proposed for them, their traffic properties, general traffic control challenges in datacenters and general traffic control objectives. The purpose of this paper is to bring out the important characteristics of traffic control in datacenters and not to survey all existing solutions (as it is virtually impossible due to massive body of existing research). We hope to provide readers with a wide range of options and factors while considering a variety of traffic control mechanisms. We discuss various characteristics of datacenter traffic control including management schemes, transmission control, traffic shaping, prioritization, load balancing, multipathing, and traffic scheduling. Next, we point to several open challenges as well as new and interesting networking paradigms. At the end of this paper, we briefly review inter-datacenter networks that connect geographically dispersed datacenters which have been receiving increasing attention recently and pose interesting and novel research problems.Comment: Accepted for Publication in IEEE Communications Surveys and Tutorial

Multimedia delivery in the future internet

The term “Networked Media” implies that all kinds of media including text, image, 3D graphics, audio and video are produced, distributed, shared, managed and consumed on-line through various networks, like the Internet, Fiber, WiFi, WiMAX, GPRS, 3G and so on, in a convergent manner [1]. This white paper is the contribution of the Media Delivery Platform (MDP) cluster and aims to cover the Networked challenges of the Networked Media in the transition to the Future of the Internet. Internet has evolved and changed the way we work and live. End users of the Internet have been confronted with a bewildering range of media, services and applications and of technological innovations concerning media formats, wireless networks, terminal types and capabilities. And there is little evidence that the pace of this innovation is slowing. Today, over one billion of users access the Internet on regular basis, more than 100 million users have downloaded at least one (multi)media file and over 47 millions of them do so regularly, searching in more than 160 Exabytes1 of content. In the near future these numbers are expected to exponentially rise. It is expected that the Internet content will be increased by at least a factor of 6, rising to more than 990 Exabytes before 2012, fuelled mainly by the users themselves. Moreover, it is envisaged that in a near- to mid-term future, the Internet will provide the means to share and distribute (new) multimedia content and services with superior quality and striking flexibility, in a trusted and personalized way, improving citizens’ quality of life, working conditions, edutainment and safety. In this evolving environment, new transport protocols, new multimedia encoding schemes, cross-layer inthe network adaptation, machine-to-machine communication (including RFIDs), rich 3D content as well as community networks and the use of peer-to-peer (P2P) overlays are expected to generate new models of interaction and cooperation, and be able to support enhanced perceived quality-of-experience (PQoE) and innovative applications “on the move”, like virtual collaboration environments, personalised services/ media, virtual sport groups, on-line gaming, edutainment. In this context, the interaction with content combined with interactive/multimedia search capabilities across distributed repositories, opportunistic P2P networks and the dynamic adaptation to the characteristics of diverse mobile terminals are expected to contribute towards such a vision. Based on work that has taken place in a number of EC co-funded projects, in Framework Program 6 (FP6) and Framework Program 7 (FP7), a group of experts and technology visionaries have voluntarily contributed in this white paper aiming to describe the status, the state-of-the art, the challenges and the way ahead in the area of Content Aware media delivery platforms