Dynamic MCU Placement for Video Conferencing on Peer-to-Peer Network

Abstract

In this paper, we investigate a novel Multipoint Video Conferencing (MVC) architecture potentially suitable for Peer-to-Peer (P2P) platform, such as Gnutella. In particular, we present an election protocol (extension to Gnutella) where the Multipoint Control Unit (MCU) of the MVC is dynamically migrated among peers when new peer joins or leaves. Simulation result shows that this improves overall conferencing performance compared to the system with static MCU by minimizing total traffic, individual node hotness, and video composition delay.