VSDN · Video streaming services with Software-Defined Networking

Video streaming services with Software-Defined Networking

Recent advances in mobile devices and video streaming services have motivated large-scale media consumption both in fixed and mobile environments. In this context, the main objective of network operators, media creators and service providers is to improve the QoE of end-users by providing high-quality services and interactive mechanisms for seamless adaptation to the specific network conditions of each user. However, the initial design of the Internet as a best-effort network makes it inappropriate for high-volume and bandwidth-intensive applications like video streaming, and recent studies show that just a couple of seconds of video buffering have a significant impact on users’ abandonment rate. Ideally, a service provider should place servers close to the end-users to overcome the limitations of the Internet architecture: Content Distribution Networks (CDNs), overlay networks built on top of the Internet infrastructure , offer the use of their distributed content delivery infrastructure service which can handle rapid changes in traffic demand. However, this is neither scalable nor desirable. Additionally, network operators currently employ centralized architectures (esp. in mobile networks) that lead to long communication paths between end-users and servers, waste of network resources and increased delays. This issue becomes increasingly important with the wider deployment and advances in wireless networks, which have more stringent resource limitations and fast-changing conditions. VSDN developed a cross-layer QoE-aware media delivery platform of video streaming services and propose a network architecture, which combines service negotiation at the application level, with the concept of SDN, leading to optimal (in a QoE sense) path assignment. Specifically, the research objective of VSDN was to develop a novel SDN-based network architecture for network control and optimal resource allocation for video streaming: the aim was to investigate SDN principles to perform optimized path assignment while achieving the desired level of QoE. This includes the specification of the SDN controller functions which allocates resources to the network elements and configures the routing mechanisms. Moreover, the objective was to develop an end-to-end QoE-aware video streaming platform that adapts content delivery, considering their individual network conditions of each user and the overall topology and resources of the network in order to maximize the end-user QoE.

Data: CORDIS, © European Union