Recent techniques for multicast or broadcast delivery of streaming media can provide immediate service to each client request yet achieve considerable client stream sharing (i.e., server and network bandwidth savings). This paper considers (1) the maximum savings in the required server (disk I/O and network) bandwidth that any such technique can provide, (2) the interplay between achievable reductions in required server bandwidth and available client receive bandwidth, (3) how well the previously proposed techniques perform relative to each other and to the minimum required server bandwidth for the assumed client capabilities, and (4) whether there are new practical delivery techniques that can achieve better server bandwidth savings than the previous techniques, yet still provide immediate service to client requests. The principal results are as follows. First, we derive the minimum required server bandwidth for any delivery technique that provides immediate service to client request...
Derek L. Eager, Mary K. Vernon, John Zahorjan