Global Overlay Live Streaming: From Algorithm Design to Experimental Studies

PhD Thesis Proposal Defence


Title: "Global Overlay Live Streaming: From Algorithm Design to Experimental
Studies"

by

Mr. Dongni Ren


ABSTRACT:

The rapid expansion of residential broadband networks has enabled the 
streaming of high-quality video over the Internet. In this thesis proposal 
we address the design and experiment of overlay network for delivering 
high quality video globally via public Internet. In overlay streaming, 
proxies are placed at different locations of the Internet to serve end 
users from various regions. The proxies form a scalable, distributed 
overlay structure and video streams are “pushed” down from the streaming 
source to all proxies. In order to achieve good quality of service, the 
overlay network needs to be designed to have low source-to-end delay, to 
support high bitrate and heterogeneous streaming rate requirements.

In this thesis we first study the design of a low-delay high-bandwidth 
backbone for overlay live streaming. We propose an efficient push-based 
multitree algorithm called “FastMesh” to construct the overlay, which 
accommodates asymmetric and diverse uplink bandwidth, and continuously 
improves delay based on existing nodes. We examine the feasibility of 
1Mbps streaming through a global measurement study on our fine-grained 
experiment platform.

Then we further push the streaming rate limit to beyond 1Mbps. To achieve 
global streaming over public Internet with higher streaming rate (multi- 
Mbps), we study the use of proxy helper to provide rich path diversity and 
overcome bandwidth bottlenecks. We formulate a problem of proxy streaming, 
and propose a centralized algorithm that efficiently constructs high 
bandwidth overlay with helpers. We also conduct a serial of global 
measurement studies of our helper network using proxies at multiple sites 
with various geographical footprint.

In the end we address the problem of reliability and user heterogeneity. 
We formulate an optimization problem using MDC with the consideration of 
streaming continuity and heterogeneous bitrate requirements. We propose 
algorithms for both centrally-managed network and large distributed 
networks.


Date:                   Thursday, 11 April 2013

Time:                   3:00pm - 5:00pm

Venue:                  Room 3501
                         lifts 25/26

Committee Members:      Dr. Jogesh Muppala (Supervisor)
                         Dr. Gary Chan (Chairperson)
 			Dr. Brahim Bensaou
 			Dr. Lin Gu


**** ALL are Welcome ****