Resource management in broadband multimedia networks
Creators: name: Jiyapanichkul, Prasit
Publisher: name: Swinburne
Year: 2024

description: This research deals with optimal resource management in an overloaded broadband multimedia network. Optimisation is with respect to user satisfaction, where user satisfaction reflects both the quality of service experienced by connected users and the dissatisfaction of users blocked from access to the network. The research focuses on Asynchronous Transfer Mode (ATM) networks and the Internet, because these are the dominant emerging broadband networks which present some fundamental unsolved problems, related to the sharing of resources between mixed traffic types. ATM networks use conservative admission control, which protects network resources and ensures a high level of service for those admitted to the network, but results in low network efficiency because of low utilisation of resources due to blocking of many potential users. The Internet does not use admission control, with the result that performance degrades progressively as load increases. This causes frustration among users, and lowers the network efficiency due to high levels of congestion. We propose an optimisation model for each network (ATM networks and the Internet)which is intended to represent the distribution and consumption of key network resources by different traffic types. The model is aimed at maximising performance such that users admitted to the network are offered no less than some minimum acceptable level of quality of service (QoS). The solution is a set of traffic flow rates on each path which results in maximising an objective function value (revenue based on network operator interest or throughput based on customer interest) for a given network configuration with given user demand. As an example using the ATM network model, we illustrate the application of the model to an ATM network carrying both connection oriented and connectionless traffic. We explore the optimal response to a link failure which in turn causes node overload. As an example using the Internet model, we consider an overloaded network with link bottlenecks and an overloaded Web server, and explore the effect of transferring some server capacity to a mirror site and a proxy server. For real-time traffic control, the optimisation model is used to assign quotas for bandwidth or connections to selected paths. A control algorithm is implemented to provide maximum performance by admitting requests within the quotas which are obtained from the optimisation model. In an ATM network simulation, the algorithm is used to manage the virtual path (VP) pool in a network which suffers a link failure. A comparison is made between fixed virtual path management (FVPM) and dynamic virtual path management (DVPM), comparing the revenue achieved by each. This illustrates how DVPM adapts the VP pool in a robust fashion to achieve maximum revenue in the face of a link failure. However, the transient response suggests that benefit could be obtained using non-steady-state solutions. The model is extended by taking network state and traffic parameters into account to control changes in the VP pool to recognise limits to the rate at which traffic can be moved (through the natural birth-death processes). This scheme is called state dependent virtual path management (SDVPM). Performance evaluation of the new model shows that SDVPM achieves higher revenue than DVPM when the network suffers a link failure that requires a major change to the VP pool. In an Internet simulation, two algorithms are compared for control of access to a proxy server and a set of primary servers. An algorithm based on optimal flow solutions provides substantially better network performance than a localised heuristic algorithm. In each simulation case (ATM and Internet examples), the performance using a control system based on the steady state optimum flow model is close to the ideal optimal result.