Staggered push - a linearly scalable architecture for push-based parallel video servers

With the rapid performance improvements in low-cost PCs, it becomes increasingly practical and cost-effective to implement large-scale video-on-demand (VoD) systems around parallel PC servers. This paper proposes a novel parallel video server architecture where video data are striped across an array of autonomous servers connected by an interconnection network. To coordinate data transmissions from multiple autonomous servers to a client station, a staggered push scheduling algorithm is proposed. A system model is constructed to quantify the performance of the architecture. Unlike most studies, this work does not assume the existence of a global clock among the servers and tackles two problems arising from server asynchrony: inconsistent schedule assignment and traffic overlapping. The former problem is solved by using an admission scheduler and the latter problem is solved by an over-rate transmission scheme. Analytical results prove a remarkable property of the staggered push archite...

• Type: Journal
• Year: 2002
• Where: TMM
• Authors: Jack Y. B. Lee
• Keywords: Architecture, Autonomous Servers, Staggered Push, TMM 2002