Network algorithms and protocol for multimedia servers

Abstract

We present a network service specifically designed for multimedia servers. It uses a histogram based traffic characterization and an overload control protocol to the eliminate packet losses in the network while providing heterogeneous statistical QoS. The key contribution of our protocol lies in combining open-loop and feedback-based control to: (1) provide heterogeneous QoS to clients in networking environments consisting of switches that may not have any scheduling support; and (2) migrate the functionality of discarding packets, in the event of congestion, to the sources which understand the semantics of the data. The protocol is efficient, makes very few assumptions about the underlying network, is realizable on current switching hardware (supporting FCFS scheduling), and is completely integrated with the architecture of a multimedia server.