Elsevier

Computer Networks

Volume 55, Issue 18, 29 December 2011, Pages 3991-4006
Computer Networks

Content delivery and caching from a network provider’s perspective

https://doi.org/10.1016/j.comnet.2011.07.026Get rights and content

Abstract

An ongoing challenge in telecommunication is to integrate a variety of services on broadband access platforms at increasing transmission speed. Traditional Internet services, such as file transfer, email and web browsing, are now running on common multi-service IP platforms together with voice, video and television over IP, online gaming, P2P downloads, etc. While broadband access is becoming established as standard for homes and via mobile devices, the networking capacities in the access and the backbone are steadily being extended to keep pace with higher traffic volumes. Content delivery (CDN) and peer-to-peer (P2P) networks carry most of today’s Internet traffic with different effects on delay and throughput as the main quality-of-service characteristics.

We give an overview of the current techniques for distributing content over the Internet via server-based and peer-to-peer overlays regarding their impact on the traffic profiles. We consider link-level measurement on network provider platforms as a basis for network-wide traffic engineering, including load balancing and for current trends and prognosis. Many recent activities in research, industry and standardization have addressed the localized delivery of large content volumes from the network edge and via exchange between peers. The main goal, namely to shorten end-to-end paths and delays, would not only enhance the user experience and benefit network providers by reducing the load in the backbone and on expensive global interconnection links, but would also, last but not least, reduce energy consumption.

Section snippets

Trends in IP traffic

When we look at the composition and development of traffic on the Internet, we see that data from many sources confirm a substantial growth over more than two decades, although reported measurements differ in the data rates and usage pattern. Some periodical statistics are officially provided by governments, e.g. for Australia and Hong Kong [6], [50], and by standardization bodies. The International Telecommunication Union [42] collects statistics on various aspects of development in

Distribution of content on the Internet via CDN and P2P overlays

CDN and P2P systems build overlays of different types, which set up their own communication architecture on top of the underlying IP network. P2P systems interconnect the terminals of the users involved without or with a minimum of their own network infrastructure and costs, whereas CDNs are based on globally distributed servers, whose connectivity can be supported in a virtual network. Both approaches introduce their own network and traffic management functions within the overlay, which can be

Network and application layer approaches for short transport paths

The challenge of optimizing the transport paths in content delivery for different applications has recently become a main focus in research and standardization. Fig. 5 illustrates three principle alternatives of

  • caching [1], [13], [36], [56],

  • positioning or coordinate systems [25], [46], and

  • information servers [2], [9], [54], [68].

Caching is an option for network providers and is also useful in the end systems, whereas positioning systems are established on the application layer to estimate

Traffic management in broadband access networks

Centralized traffic management architectures have been developed for fixed broadband access networks in a phase of growing user population over the last decade. Internet access in private households has become a standard technology together with television and telephony, which will all be integrated in a common multimedia online solution in the coming decades. Traffic management has to ensure quality of service for users in a cost-efficient way. This starts with stable situations of normal

Conclusions

Popular content on the Internet is mainly delivered via global CDNs, which shorten the transport paths through distributed server architectures, and via peer-to-peer networks, which are currently subject to longer transport paths, resulting in unnecessarily high network load and delays. We have addressed alternative ways of optimizing traffic paths on CDN and P2P overlays with support from location servers, caches or traffic engineering, based on delay measurement. The broadly confirmed

Gerhard Haßlinger has more than 10 years of experience as a researcher and lecturer in computer science at Darmstadt University of Technology, and as an engineer in the architecture of fixed/mobile broadband access networks at Deutsche Telekom, Darmstadt, Germany. His research interests include content distribution, traffic engineering, reliability and quality of service aspects of computer and communication networks, as well as information theory and coding.

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    Gerhard Haßlinger has more than 10 years of experience as a researcher and lecturer in computer science at Darmstadt University of Technology, and as an engineer in the architecture of fixed/mobile broadband access networks at Deutsche Telekom, Darmstadt, Germany. His research interests include content distribution, traffic engineering, reliability and quality of service aspects of computer and communication networks, as well as information theory and coding.

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