CAREER: Providing Interactive VOD Services in Multicast Networks

首席研究员（PI）将研究在多播网络中提供交互式视频点播（VOD）服务的有效方案。交互式视频点播服务允许用户随时选择自己喜欢的内容，有可能成为新兴宽带综合业务数字网络中最成功的业务之一。VOD系统设计的最大挑战是解决服务器网络i /O带宽的瓶颈，以便向大量用户传输视频。本设计的核心问题是如何有效地调度服务器和网络资源，以满足来自不同客户端的各种请求。本研究对服务器和网络资源调度的有效方案进行了系统的研究。此外，PI将探索在不对服务器和网络资源产生过多需求的情况下促进交互操作的途径。PI还将在高性能骨干网服务（vBNS）和互联网多播骨干网（Mbone）上建立一个测试平台，将所提出的方案结合起来。测试平台将允许研究人员解决实施问题，并对拟议的方案和从这些实验中产生的其他问题进行实验。教育重点：PI致力于本科计算机科学教育。自从进入史密斯学院（一所四年制女子文理学院）以来，PI已经将多媒体和网络概念纳入了各级计算机科学课程。多媒体网络是“信息革命”必不可少的重要方面。提出的研究为本科女性的参与提供了一个理想的框架。所描述的研究项目需要大量的模拟来支持分析和算法设计。所描述的试验台的实施和实验将提供一个长期的本科生研究计划。通过本提案所述的项目，PI计划继续指导女大学生进行多媒体网络方面的研究。她还计划吸引更多的本科女性主修计算机科学，并通过树立榜样、一对一互动和为学生提供职业建议来指导这一领域的女性。这些活动都得到了史密斯的大力支持，包括财政和行政资源，拓展项目。

The Principal Investigator (PI) will study efficient schemes that provide interactive video-on-demand (VOD) services in multicast networks. Interactive VOD services allow a subscriber to select the content ofhis/her choice at any time, and are likely to become one of the most successful services in the emerging broadband integrated services digital networks. The great challenge in the design of a VOD system is to addressthe bottleneck on the server network-I/O bandwidth for delivering videos to a large number of users. At the core of this design issue is the problem of efficient scheduling of server and network resources so as to satisfy various requests from a diverse set of clients. This research is a systematic study of efficient schemes for scheduling server and network resources. In addition, the PI will explore avenues that facilitateinteractive operations without making excessive demands on server and network resources. The PI will also build a testbed incorporating the proposed schemes on the very high performance Backbone Network Service(vBNS) and the Internet Multicast Backbone (Mbone). The testbed will allow the researcher to address implementation issues and to experiment with the proposed schemes and additional issues arising from these experiments.Education Focus:The PI is committed to a career in undergraduate computer science education. Since coming to Smith College --a four-year liberal arts college for women, the PI has incorporated multimedia and networking concepts into the computer science curriculum at all levels. Multimedia networking is an essential and important aspect of the ``information revolution''. The proposed research provides an ideal framework for undergraduate women's participation. The research project described requires extensive simulations to bolster the analyses and algorithm designs. The implementation of and experimentation with the testbed described will provide a long-term undergraduate research program. Through the project described in this proposal, the PI plans to continue supervising undergraduate women to do research in multimedia networking. She also plans to attract more undergraduate women to major in computer science and mentorwomen in this field through being a role model, one-to-one interaction, and student career advising. These are all activities strongly supported by Smith in the form of financial and administrative resources, outreach programs.