Content delivery and caching from a network provider’s perspective
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.
References (69)
QoS-aware bandwidth provisioning for IP backbone links
Comput. Netw.
(2006)A measurement study supporting P2P file-sharing community models
Comput. Netw.
(2009)- et al.
Zipf and other power laws
Econ. Lett.
(2001) - B. Ager, F. Schneider, J. Kim, A. Feldmann, Revisiting cacheability in times of user generated content, in: Proceedings...
- et al.
Can ISPs and P2P users cooperate for improved performance?
ACM SIGCOMM Comput. Commun. Rev.
(2007) - Akamai, State of the Internet, Quarterly Report Series (2011)...
- et al.
Statistical mechanics of complex networks
Rev. Mod. Phys.
(2002) - Arbor Networks...
- Australian Bureau of Statistics, pages on Internet activity (2011)...
- et al.
World wide web caching: trends and techniques
IEEE Commun. Mag.
(2000)
Improving traffic locality in BitTorrent via biased neighbor selection
ICDCS
Distributed caching algorithms for content distribution networks
IEEE Infocom
Web caching and Zipf-like distributions: Evidence and implications
Proc. IEEE Infocom
Content distribution infrastructures for community networks
Comput. Netw. Special Issue
A survey on content-oriented networking for efficient content delivery
IEEE Comm. Mag.
Network awareness of P2P live streaming applications: a measurement study
IEEE Trans. Multimed.
Maximizing restorable throughput in MPLS networks
IEEE Infocom
Does Internet media traffic really follow Zipf-like distributions?
ACM SIGMETRICS
Cited by (52)
The role of the Weibull distribution in modelling traffic in Internet access and backbone core networks
2019, Journal of Network and Computer ApplicationsCitation Excerpt :Obviously this may not hold for CDN applications which require real time synchronization between data centers and for access networks. More related studies on CDN traffic and their profile can be seen in (Stocker et al., 2017; Haβlinger and Hartleb, 2011). where N is the number of component equilibrium renewal processes (homogeneous) each with an expected value of interarrival time as being μ.
Towards a novel cache replacement strategy for Named Data Networking based on Software Defined Networking
2018, Computers and Electrical EngineeringCitation Excerpt :On account of this vision, some features, such as: data cache management, mobility management, naming, forwarding and security, become fundamental elements in the ICN model. The use of the cache becomes a vital component to deliver data, especially in Web traffic, Peer-to-Peer applications and Content Delivery Network (CDN) [3]. In the ICNs, this service, noted in-network caching, was not deeply dealt with by the first solutions [2].
Performance evaluation for new web caching strategies combining LRU with score based object selection
2017, Computer NetworksCitation Excerpt :On the whole, caches of different size are present in various parts of IP networks ranging from the core via edge servers of clouds, CDNs and ISP networks to the user devices. In this way, they play an important role to overcome bandwidth bottlenecks and to reduce transfer delays [17,29,32,33]. The annual reports by Cisco [10] and Sandvine [34] include estimations of main IP traffic components, which reveal that video streaming and download applications generate most of the current IP traffic.
OPAC: An optimal placement algorithm for virtual CDN
2017, Computer NetworksCitation Excerpt :and it does the accounting and billing tasks. Moreover, this network can perform many file management actions like hosting/caching/fetching/swapping in order to satisfy the client’s Quality of Experience (QoE) and enhance the overall Quality of Service (QoS) of the network [4]. In video streaming systems either live-streaming or on-demand services, the CDN placement is a key point in delivery optimization.
Big Data-backed video distribution in the telecom cloud
2016, Computer CommunicationsCitation Excerpt :Live-TV and Video on Demand (VoD) distribution is in the portfolio of many telecom operators aiming at entering into competition with on-line, over-the-top broadcasters, such as Netflix. To this end, a Content Delivery Network (CDN) is being considered as a suitable option to be deployed by telecom operators internally within their network infrastructure by placing cache nodes in geographically distributed locations covering a territory [1,2]. Forecasts show that 79% of the global IP traffic will be related to video traffic by 2018 [3] thus managing its own CDN allows the network operator to better control and manage the video content injected into the network through predictable traffic sources strategically placed according to a careful network planning to maximize capacity savings.
Analysis of network function sharing in Content Delivery Network-as-a-service slicing scenarios
2023, International Journal of Network Management
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.
Franz Hartleb received the diploma degree in computer science and the Dr. degree from the University of Erlangen-Nürnberg (Germany). Since 1996 he is with Deutsche Telekom AG, T-Systems. Main interests are traffic analysis, traffic modelling, quality of service, and dimensioning of IP networks.