CAREER: Providing Interactive VOD Services in Multicast Networks

首席研究员将研究在多播网络中提供交互式视频点播服务的有效方案。 交互式VOD业务允许用户在任何时候选择他/她所选择的内容，并且有可能成为新兴的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如何解决服务器网络的瓶颈--I/O带宽问题，以便将视频传送给大量的用户。这个设计问题的核心是服务器和网络资源的有效调度问题，以满足来自不同客户端的各种请求。本研究是一个系统的研究，有效的计划调度服务器和网络资源。此外，PI将探索促进交互式操作的途径，而不会对服务器和网络资源产生过度需求。PI还将建立一个测试平台，将所提出的方案结合在非常高性能的骨干网络服务（vBNS）和互联网组播骨干（Mbone）上。该测试平台将允许研究人员解决实施问题，并尝试拟议的计划和这些experiments.Education重点所产生的其他问题：PI致力于本科计算机科学教育的职业生涯。自从来到史密斯学院--一所四年制女子文理学院，PI已经将多媒体和网络概念纳入各级计算机科学课程。多媒体网络是"信息革命“的一个基本和重要方面。 该研究为大学女生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。所描述的测试平台的实施和实验将提供一个长期的本科生研究计划。通过本提案中所述的项目，公共信息学院计划继续指导女大学生进行多媒体网络研究。她还计划吸引更多的本科女生主修计算机科学，并通过成为榜样、一对一互动和学生职业咨询来吸引这一领域的女导师。这些都是史密斯以财政和行政资源、外联方案的形式大力支持的活动。

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.