CAREER: Providing Interactive VOD Services in Multicast Networks

首席调查员(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VOD业务允许用户随时选择他/她选择的内容，很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。视频点播系统设计中的最大挑战是解决服务器网络上的瓶颈--向大量用户提供视频的I/O带宽。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。本研究是对服务器和网络资源高效调度方案的系统研究。此外，PI将探索在不对服务器和网络资源提出过高要求的情况下促进互动操作的途径。PI还将在甚高性能骨干网络服务(VBNS)和互联网多播骨干网(MBONE)上建立一个包含建议方案的试验台。试验台将允许研究人员解决实施问题，并试验拟议的方案和这些实验产生的其他问题。教育重点：PI致力于本科计算机科学教育。自从来到史密斯学院--一所四年制的女子文理学院以来，PI已经将多媒体和网络的概念融入到各级计算机科学课程中。多媒体网络是“信息革命”的一个基本和重要方面。本研究为大学生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广泛的模拟来支持分析和算法设计。所述试验床的实施和实验将提供一个长期的本科生研究计划。通过这项提案中描述的项目，PI计划继续监督本科生女性从事多媒体网络研究。她还计划通过成为榜样、一对一互动和学生职业咨询来吸引更多的本科生女性进入计算机科学专业，并在这一领域担任女性导师。这些活动都得到了史密斯在财政和行政资源、外展计划等方面的大力支持。

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.