A bio-inspired managed video delivery service using HTTP-based adaptive streaming

As consumers switch to video-on-demand services, over the best effort Internet, the importance of service-level agreement enforcement schemes cannot be over emphasised. For these agreements to be effective, content providers must be able to enforce business policies in a simple and scalable manner, typically without access to the functionality within the core of the content delivery infrastructure. The option of relying on Media Presentation Description (MPD) attributes for video rate restriction is neither flexible nor effective. Hence, in this paper, we present a bio-inspired solution that exploits the inherent features of an HTTP-based adaptive streaming service to enable content providers guarantee service-level agreements. We utilise concepts from mathematical ecology that model species competing for a limited resource. In the proposed solution, distributed clients are assisted with global information using SDN. To enhance the scalability of the system, a business policy is enforced through parameter optimisation. To demonstrate the applicability of the proposed service, we built a test-bed and implemented a number of business policies. Evaluation results show that business policies are enforced in a fair and stable manner.