QoS support for streaming media using a multimedia server cluster

Abstract

We develop algorithms to provide Quality of Service (QoS) support for prioritized, bandwidth-adaptive and fair media streaming using a multimedia server cluster. We formulate the underlying related problems of prioritized client admission control, redirection to appropriate streaming server, adaptive client quality control, and server load-balancing as one combined optimization. This optimization corresponds to solving a Multiple Choice Multiple Knapsack Problem, which is in general NP hard. By partitioning this optimization into two separate related optimizations we can design several low-complexity algorithms to provide exact and approximate solutions. We select a log-linear utility function that maintains differentiability and captures the video quality to measure the derived client and system benefit. We provide bounds on the performance of these algorithms, and examine the system time evolution in terms of the number of clients supported and QoS provided to each client, over realistic simulation scenarios. © 2006 IEEE.