Accelerating Internet streaming media delivery using network-aware partial caching

Abstract

Internet streaming applications are affected by adverse network conditions such as high packet loss rates and long delays. This paper aims at mitigating such effects by leveraging the availability of client-side caching proxies. We present a novel caching architecture and associated cache management algorithms that turn edge caches into accelerators of streaming media delivery. A salient feature of our caching algorithms is that they allow partial caching of streaming media objects and joint delivery of content from caches and origin servers. The caching algorithms we propose are both network-aware and stream-aware; they take into account the popularity of streaming media objects, their bit-rate requirements, and the available bandwidth between clients and servers. Using realistic models of Internet bandwidth derived from proxy cache logs and measured over real Internet paths, we have conducted simulations to evaluate the performance of various cache management alternatives. Our experiments demonstrate that network-aware caching algorithms can significantly reduce service delay and improve overall stream quality. Our experiments also show that partial caching is particularly effective when bandwidth variability is not very high.