Combined Asynchronous/Synchronous Packet Switching Architecture: QoS Guarantees for Integrated Parallel Computing and Real-Time Traffic

This paper focuses on the challenging problem of integrating real-time traffic with data traffic on the same network, while having predictable quality of service (QoS) guarantees. Predictable QoS guarantees mean both deterministic and probabilistic (with a known probability distribution) functions of loss, delay, and jitter. As of today there are only limited solutions to this problem. This work presents, to the best of our knowledge, the first coherent system solution, for combining, on one hand, bursty data traffic with deterministic no loss due to congestion, and on the other hand, periodic real-time traffic with deterministic bandwidth guarantees, constant jitter, and bounded delay. The principles of this architecture facilitate the implementation of a scalable multimedia system that will combine or integrate distributed/parallel computing (e.g., over a network of PC/workstations) with real-time applications (e.g., interactive video teleconferencing).     

Design of a crossbar VOQ real-time switch with clock-driven scheduling for a guaranteed delay bound

Most commercial network switches are designed to achieve good average throughput and delay needed for Internet traffic, whereas hard real-time applications demand a bounded delay. Our real-time switch combines clearance-time-optimal switching with clock-based scheduling on a crossbar switching fabric. We use real-time virtual machine tasks to serve both periodic and aperiodic traffic, which simplifies analysis and provides isolation from other system operations. We can then show that any feasible traffic will be switched in two clock periods. This delay bound is enabled by introducing one-shot traffic, which can be constructed at the cost of a fixed delay of one clock period. We carry out simulation to compare our switch with the popular iSLIP crossbar switch scheduler. Our switch has a larger schedulability region, a bounded lower end-to-end switching delay, and a shorter clearance time which is the time required to serve every packet in the system.     

集中管理式Web缓存系统及性能分析

共享缓存文件是减少网络通信量和服务器负载的重要方法，本文在介绍Web Caching技术及流行的Web缓存通信协议ICP的基础上，提出了一种集中管理式Web缓存系统，该系统通过将用户的HTTP请求，按照一定的算法分发到系统中某一合适的缓存服务器上，从而消除了缓存系统内部服务器之间庞大的通信开销及缓存处理负担，减少了缓存内容的冗余度．通过分析，证明了集中管理式Web缓存系统比基于ICP的简单缓存系统具有缓存效率高、处理开销低、延迟小等优点，并且该系统具有良好的可扩展性．     

Efficient link scheduling for online admission control of real-time traffic in wireless mesh networks

Link scheduling is used in wireless mesh networks (WMNs) to guarantee interference-free transmission on the shared wireless medium in a time division multiple access approach. Several papers in the literature address the problem of link scheduling guaranteeing a minimum throughput to the flows traversing the WMN. However, none of the existing works address the problem of computing a schedule that guarantees that pre-specified end-to-end delay constraints are met. In this paper, we make a first step forward in this direction by defining a link scheduling algorithm that works in sink-tree WMNs, i.e. those whose traffic is routed towards a common sink (i.e. the Internet gateway). Our iterative algorithm exploits a delay-based admission control procedure, devised through Network Calculus, which solves an optimization problem and tests the feasibility of a schedule from the point of view of delay guarantees. Thanks to a clever solution approach for the optimization problem, the iterative algorithm computes feasible solutions in affordable times for networks of several tens of nodes, and is thus amenable to online admission control of real-time traffic.     

Announced dynamic access probability protocol for next generation wireless networks

A multiple access protocol that is particularly suitable for cellular Internet access and satellite-based networks with on-board processing is developed in this paper. The basic idea is that when a user wishes to send a message, it transmits with probability p_access that depends on the load on the channel. Under conditions of low load, the probability p_access approaches 1, while at high load p_access is relatively low. This media access control protocol guarantees high channel utilization at high load, as well as low delay at low load periods. Using the statistical usage of the shared channel, the load is estimated with certain uncertainty. Our analysis shows that using the statistical usage of the shared channel, the optimal access probability can be well estimated for a broad class of load distribution patterns. In addition, we propose to use a central station to broadcast the value of p_access in networks with poor collision detection capability, or long feedback delay. The proposed method is particularly suitable for shared channels with poor collision detection capability, under conditions of bursty traffic and a large number of users. Examples for such channels are the reservation channel in satellite-based networks with on-board processing, and the control channel in cellular networks. Hence, the proposed method can be used for cellular Internet access and for accessing public satellite-based networks. The broadcast mechanism that already exists in such networks can be used to inform the users the dynamic access probability.     

A new fast friendly window-based congestion control for real-time streaming media transmission

1 Introduction In the current Internet, not all applications use TCP and they do not follow the same concept of fairly sharing the available bandwidth. The rapid growing of real-time streaming media applications will bring much UDP traffic without integrating TCP compatible congestion control mechanism into Internet. It threats the quality of service (QoS) of real-time applications and the stability of the current Internet. For this reason, it is desirable to define appropriate rate rule…     

Adaptive-level memory caches on World Wide Web servers

Owing to the fast growth of World Wide Web (WWW), web traffic has become a major component of Internet traffics. Consequently, the reduction of document retrieval latency on WWW becomes more and more important. The latency can be reduced in two ways: reduction of network delay and improvement of web servers’ throughput. Our research aims at improving a web server’s throughput by keeping a memory cache in a web server’s address space.In this paper, we focus on the design and implementation of a memory cache scheme. We propose a novel web cache management policy named the adaptive-level policy that either caches the whole file content or only a portion of it, according to the file size. The experimental results show three things. First, our memory cache is beneficial since, under our experimental workloads, the throughput improvement can achieve 32.7%. Second, our cache management policy is suitable for current web traffic. Third, with the increasing popularity of multimedia files, our policy will outperform others currently used in WWW.     

数据挖掘技术在Web预取中的应用研究

WWW以其多媒体的传输及良好的交互性而倍受青睐,虽然近几年来网络速度得到了很大的提高,但是由于接入Internet的用户数量剧增以及Web服务和网络固有的延迟,使得网络越来越拥护,用户的服务质量得不到很好的保证。为此文中提出了一种智能Web预取技术,它能够加快用户浏览Web页面时获取页面的速度。该技术通过简化的WWW数据模型表示用户浏览器缓冲器中的数据,在此基础上利用数据挖掘技术挖掘用户的兴趣关联规则,存放在兴趣关联知识库中,作为对用户行为进行预测的依据。在用户端,智能代理负责用户兴趣的挖掘及基于兴趣关联知识库的Web预取,从而对用户实现透明的浏览器加速。     

Downloading trace study for BitTorrent P2P performance measurement and analysis

With the increasing client population and the explosive volume of Internet media content, the peer-to-peer networking technologies and systems provide a rapid and scalable content distribution mechanism in the global networks. The BitTorrent protocol and its derivatives are among the most popular peer-to-peer file sharing applications, which contribute a dominant fraction of today??s Internet traffic. In this paper, we conduct the performance measurement and analysis of BitTorrent systems with an extensive volume of real trace logs. We use several downloading-side metrics, including overall downloading time, maximum of downloading bandwidth, average bandwidth utilization, maximum of downloading connections, and average number of active connections, to derive various interesting results from the downloading-side aspect of network resource usage. Performance examination learns many new observations and characteristics into the virtue of BitTorrent protocols and systems, thereby providing beneficial information for bandwidth allocation and connection control in BitTorrent client applications. Therefore, this study is complementary to many previous research works that mainly focused on system-oriented and uploading-side performance measurements.     

An expert system for real-time traffic management in wireless local area networks

The paper explores delay-based congestion and flow control and the offloading of real-time traffic from wireless local area networks (WLANs) to mobile cellular networks (MCNs) in multihomed devices. The control system developed is based on an embedded hierarchical expert system. It adjusts transceivers’ traffic flow(s) for prevailing network conditions to achieve application-dependent delay and throughput limits. In wireless networks, delay and throughput depend on the packet size, packet transmission interval, and node connection density. Therefore, the controller on the destination node monitors average one-way delay and the change of one-way delay of the incoming traffic. On this basis, it adjusts the packet size and transmission interval of the source node by transmitting a control command to the source. If the prevailing level of traffic in the network exceeds its capacity despite of the control actions taken, devices prepare for developed asynchronous offloading of traffic to another access network.The control model was validated via simulation of Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) traffic in the OMNeT++ network simulator. The results demonstrate that the expert system developed is able to regulate packet sizes to match the prevailing application-dependent optimum and transfer traffic to another network if the network exceed its capacity no matter the control actions taken. Although this work is motivated mainly by issues of congestion and flow control of WLAN systems and the simulations and results were prepared for the IEEE 802.11b system, the approach and techniques are not limited to these systems, but they are applicable for other packet switched access networks (PSANs), too.     

A scalable cost-effective video broadcasting system for on-demand video services

Recent years have seen intensive investigations of Periodic Broadcast, an attractive paradigm for broadcasting popular videos. In this paradigm, the server simply broadcasts segments of a popular video periodically on a number of communication channels. A large number of clients can be served simultaneously by tuning into these channels to receive segments of the requested video. A playback can begin as soon as a client can access the first segment. Periodic Broadcast guarantees a small maximum service delay regardless of the number of concurrent clients. Existing periodic broadcast techniques are typically evaluated through analytical assessment. While these results are good performance indicators, they cannot demonstrate subtle implementation difficulty that can prohibit these techniques from practical deployment. In this paper, we present the design and implementation of a video broadcasting system based on our periodic broadcast scheme called Striping Broadcast. Our experience with the system confirms that the system offers a low service delay close to its analytical guaranteed delay while requiring small storage space and low download bandwidth at a client.     

A collaborative P2P scheme for NAT Traversal Server discovery based on topological information

In the current Internet picture more than 70% of the hosts are located behind Network Address Translators (NATs). This is not a problem for the client/server paradigm. However, the Internet has evolved, and nowadays the largest portion of the traffic is due to peer-to-peer (p2p) applications. This scenario presents an important challenge: two hosts behind NATs (NATed hosts) cannot establish direct communications. The easiest way to solve this problem is by using a third entity, called Relay, that forwards the traffic between the NATed hosts. Although many efforts have been devoted to avoid the use of Relays, they are still needed in many situations. Hence, the selection of a suitable Relay becomes critical to many p2p applications. In this paper, we propose the Gradual Proximity Algorithm (GPA): a simple algorithm that guarantees the selection of a topologically close-by Relay. We present a measurement-based analysis, showing that the GPA minimizes both the delay of the relayed communication and the transit traffic generated by the Relay, being a QoS-aware and ISP-friendly solution. Furthermore, the paper presents the Peer-to-Peer NAT Traversal Architecture (P2P-NTA), which is a global, distributed and collaborative solution, based on the GPA. This architecture addresses the Relay discovery/selection problem. We have performed large-scale simulations based on real measurements, which validate our proposal. The results demonstrate that the P2P-NTA performs similarly to direct communications with reasonably large deployments of p2p applications. In fact, only 5% of the communications experience an extra delay that may degrade the QoS due to the use of Relays. Furthermore, the amount of extra transit traffic generated is only 6%. We also show that the P2P-NTA largely outperforms other proposals, where the QoS degradation affects up to more than 50% of the communications, and the extra traffic generated goes beyond 80%.     

代理Web Cache性能分析

采用WebCache技术提高当前Internet性能已成为一个主流的研究领域,其功能原理就象处理器和文件系统中的多级高速缓存一样。大规模Web高速缓存系统已成为许多国家Internet基础设施的重要组成部分。该文从三个不同访问规模的代理WebCache的跟踪日志出发,分析了WebCache的用户访问模式、Cache命中率、Cache服务器处理延迟等统计特征,提出基于分布式共享RAM和外存储结合的两级协同WebCache集群技术,可以提供可扩展的高性能并行Web高速缓存服务。     

Integrated voice and data network

A bus-structured local area communications network unidirectional bus system, over which packets are broadcast. Stations are connected to the communications channel by means of three passive taps. The multiple-access protocol is an extension of the register-insertion scheme used for loop networks; it is extremely efficient and guarantees that the packet access delay is less than a known maximum. Message-based priority functions can be introduced with a minimum overhead. The channel-access protocol allows an efficient integration of real-time traffic, such as packetized voice, with bursty data traffic. Simulation results quantitatively demonstrate the protocol performance.     

Evalvid-RA: trace driven simulation of rate adaptive MPEG-4 VBR video

Due to the increasing deployment of conversational real-time applications like VoIP and videoconferencing, the Internet is today facing new challenges. Low end-to-end delay is a vital QoS requirement for these applications, and the best effort Internet architecture does not support this natively. The delay and packet loss statistics are directly coupled to the aggregated traffic characteristics when link utilization is close to saturation. In order to investigate the behavior and quality of such applications under heavy network load, it is therefore necessary to create genuine traffic patterns. Trace files of real compressed video and audio are text files containing the number of bytes per video and audio frame. These can serve as material to construct mathematical traffic models. They can also serve as traffic generators in network simulators since they determine the packet sizes and their time schedule. However, to inspect perceived quality, the compressed binary content is needed to ensure decoding of received media. The EvalVid streaming video tool-set enables this using a sophisticated reassembly engine. Nevertheless, there has been a lack of research solutions for rate adaptive media content. The Internet community fears a congestion collapse if the usage of non-adaptive media content continues to grow. This paper presents a solution named Evalvid-RA for the simulation of true rate adaptive video. The solution generates real rate adaptive MPEG-4 streaming traffic, using the quantizer scale for adjusting the sending rate. A feedback based VBR rate controller is used at simulation time, supporting TFRC and a proprietary congestion control system named P-AQM. Example ns-2 simulations of TFRC and P-AQM demonstrate Evalvid-RA’s capabilities in performing close-to-true rate adaptive codec operation with low complexity to enable the simulation of large networks with many adaptive media sources on a single computer.     

A Computation Method for Providing Statistical Performance Guarantee to an ATM Switch1

ATM is a connection-oriented technology and messages are divided into fixed size packet called cells to facilitate communications. However, before two hosts can communicate, a connection has to be established between them. Consider a real-time communication application running on top of an ATM network. In order to provide the real-time service, we require the network to provide a performance guarantee for the connection. There are two types of performance guarantees: deterministic and statistical guarantees. While a deterministic guarantee provides an absolute bound on the worst case cell delay experienced in an ATM switch, a statistical guarantee provides a probabilistic bound on the worst case cell delay. In this paper, we use a self-similar stochastic process to characterize the arrival of the real-time traffic. Extending from our previous work on deterministic delay guarantee, we provide methods for determinating the statistical delay bound for the worst case cell delay in an ATM switch with various output port controllers. We conclude this paper with two case studies: one based on ordinary LAN traffic and one on the variable bit-rate MPEG video transmission of the movie Star Wars. To show the effectiveness of our statistical delay guarantee, we compare it with the delay derived by Cruz as well as the actual cell delay determined by the two traffic traces.     

嵌入式Web网络传感器的实时数据采集方法

实时获取传感器数据是基于Internet测控系统的关键技术之一,对Web传感器的远程实时数据采集方法,国内报道的不多.基于CGI和Java Applet技术实现了远程传感器数据的实时采集,通过数字签名技术实现了客户端的数据存储,并应用到了实际的传感器,具有一定的实用性.     

基于Windows终端信息过滤的网络访问控制研究

为防范终端从网络中获取不良信息,分析了常见的网络访问控制和信息过滤方法,建立了基于终端信息过滤的网络访问控制模型。该模型通过综合分析URL地址/关键字I、P地址和协议等信息来识别不良网站,通过分析网页文本关键词识别不良网页。基于Windows网络过滤驱动技术,开发了一款Windows终端网络信息过滤和访问控制软件。该软件拦截Win-dows终端的网络访问数据流,应用建立的网络访问控制模型,实现了对不良网站和网页的访问控制。     

网络安全检测系统的设计与实现

网络安全问题是当今互联网应用的重要课题之一,强化网络应用安全一方面需要加强网络安全应用意识,另一方面通过技术手段部署网络安全检测系统,实时审计网络应用内容,实现对网络应用环境的监控和保护。本文设计和实现一款网络安全检测系统,该系统能够对用户身份进行管理、通过获取主机信息和硬件信息管理软件和硬件,建立网址黑名单屏蔽危险网站浏览,并对网络传输文件进行审计,确保网络应用安全。     

基于周期性无线网络数据传输的缓存管理技术研究

网络缓存管理是一种降低Internet流量和提高终端用户响应时间的网络技术。它来自于计算机和网络的其他领域,如目前流行的Intel架构的CPU中就存在缓存,用于提高内存存取的速度;各种操作系统在进行磁盘存取时也会利用缓存来提高速度;分布式文件系统通常也通过缓存来提高客户机和服务器之间的速度。无线网络数据的缓存可以在客户端,也可以在网络上,该文基于此,对周期性网络数据传输过程中的缓存管理技术进行了初步研究。