skip to main content
research-article

GridCast: Improving peer sharing for P2P VoD

Authors Info & Claims
Published:06 November 2008Publication History
Skip Abstract Section

Abstract

Video-on-Demand (VoD) is a compelling application, but costly. VoD is costly due to the load it places on video source servers. Many have proposed using peer-to-peer (P2P) techniques to shift load from servers to peers. Yet, nobody has implemented and deployed a system to openly and systematically evaluate how these techniques work.

This article describes the design, implementation and evaluation of GridCast, a real deployed P2P VoD system. GridCast has been live on CERNET since May of 2006. It provides seek, pause, and play operations, and employs peer sharing to improve system scalability. In peak months, GridCast has served videos to 23,000 unique users. From the first deployment, we have gathered information to understand the system and evaluate how to further improve peer sharing through caching and replication.

We first show that GridCast with single video caching (SVC) can decrease load on source servers by an average of 22% from a client-server architecture. We analyze the net effect on system resources and determine that peer upload is largely idle. This leads us to changing the caching algorithm to cache multiple videos (MVC). MVC decreases source load by an average of 51% over the client-server. The improvement is greater as user load increases. This bodes well for peer-assistance at larger scales.

A detailed analysis of MVC shows that departure misses become a major issue in a P2P VoD system with caching optimization. Motivated by this observation, we examine how to use replication to eliminate departure misses and further reduce server load. A framework for lazy replication is presented and evaluated in this article. In this framework, two predictors are plugged in to create the working replication algorithm. With these two simple predictors, lazy replication can decrease server load by 15% from MVC with only a minor increase in network traffic.

References

  1. Annapureddy, S., Guha, S., and Gkantsidis, C. 2007. Is high-quality VoD feasible using P2P swarming? In Proceedings of the International World Wide Web Conference. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  2. CERNET. 2006. China Education and Research Network Annual Report.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  3. Cheng, B., Jin, H., and Liao, X. 2007. Supporting VCR functions in P2P VoD services using ring-assisted overlays. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  4. Cheng, B., Stein, L., Jin, H., and Zhang, Z. 2008. Towards cinematic internet video-on-demand. In Proceedings of the European Professional Society on Computer Systems. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  5. Chu, Y. H., Rao, S. G., and Zhang, H. 2000. A Case for End System Multicast. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGMETRICS Joint International Conference on Measurement and Modeling of Computer Systems. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  6. Cohen, B. 2003. Incentives Build Robustness in BitTorrent. In Proceedings of the Workshop on the Economics of Peer-to-Peer Stystems.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  7. Cui, L., Li, B., and Nahrstedt, K. 2004. oStream: Asynchronous streaming multicast in application-layer overlay networks. IEEE J. Select. Area Commun. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  8. Guo, L., Chen, S., Xiao, Z., Tan, E., Ding, X., and Zhang, X. 2005. Measurements, analysis, and modeling of BitTorrent-like systems. In Proceedings of the Internet Marketing Conference. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  9. Guo, Y., Suh, K., Kurose, J., and Towsley, D. 2003. P2Cast: Peer-to-peer patching scheme for VoD service. In Proceedings of the International World Wide Web Conference. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  10. Hall, Y. J., Piemonte, P., and Weyant, M. 2007. Joost: A measurement study. Tech. rep., School of Computer Science, Carnegie-Mellon University.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  11. Handley, M., Jacobson, V., and Perkins, C. 2006. SDP: Session Description Protocol. RFC 4566 (Proposed Standard).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  12. Hei, X., Liang, C., Liang, J., Liu, Y., and Ross, K. W. 2007. A measurement study of a large-scale P2P IPTV system. In IEEE Trans. Multimed. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  13. Huang, C., Li, J., and Ross, K. W. 2007. Can Internet Video-on-Demand be Profitable. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Data Communications Festival. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  14. Huang, Y., Fu, T. Z. J., Chiu, D. M., Lui, J. C. S., and Huang, C. 2008. Challenges, design and analysis of a large-scale P2P VoD system. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Data Communications Festival. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  15. Liao, X., Jin, H., Liu, Y., Ni, M., and Deng, D. 2006. AnySee: Peer-to-peer live streaming. In Proceedings of the Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  16. Mol, J., Pouwelse, J., Meulpolder, M., Epema, D., and Sips, H. 2008. Give-to-Get: Free-riding-resilient video-on-demand in P2P systems. In Proceedings of the Multimedia Computing and Networking Conference.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  17. Qiu, D. and Srikant, R. 2004. Modeling and performance analysis of BitTorrent-like peer-to-peer networks. In Proceedings of the ACM SIGCOMM Data Communications Festival. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  18. Schulzrinne, H., Casner, S., Frederick, R., and Jacobson, V. 2003. RTP: A transport protocol for real-time applications. RFC 3550 (Standard). Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  19. Schulzrinne, H., Rao, A., and Lanphier, R. 1998. Real Time Streaming Protocol (RTSP). RFC 2326 (Proposed Standard). Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  20. Sripanidkulchai, K., Maggs, B., and Zhang, H. 2004. An analysis of live streaming workloads on the Internet. In Proceedings of the Internet Marketing Conference. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  21. Tai, D., Kien, H. A., and Mounir, T. 2004. P2VoD: Providing fault tolerant video-on-demand streaming in peer-to-peer environment. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Communications.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  22. Tian, J. and Dai, Y. 2007. Understanding the dynamics of peer-to-peer systems. In Proceedings of the 6th International Workshop on Peer-to-Peer Systems (IPTPS'07).Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  23. Wang, D. and Liu, J. 2006. Peer-to-Peer asynchronous video streaming using Skip List. In Proceedings of the IEEE International Conference on Multimedia in Europe.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar
  24. Yu, H. L., Zheng, D. D., Zhao, B. Y., and Zheng, W. M. 2006. Understanding user behavior in large-scale video-on-demand systems. In Proceedings of the European Professional Society on Computer Systems. Google ScholarGoogle ScholarDigital LibraryDigital Library
  25. Zhang, X., Liu, J., Li, B., and Yum, Y. S. P. 2005. CoolStreaming/DONet: A data-driven overlay network for peer-to-peer live media streaming. In Proceedings of the Annual Joint Conference of the IEEE Computer and Communications Societies.Google ScholarGoogle Scholar

Index Terms

  1. GridCast: Improving peer sharing for P2P VoD

            Recommendations

            Comments

            Login options

            Check if you have access through your login credentials or your institution to get full access on this article.

            Sign in

            Full Access

            • Published in

              cover image ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications
              ACM Transactions on Multimedia Computing, Communications, and Applications  Volume 4, Issue 4
              October 2008
              117 pages
              ISSN:1551-6857
              EISSN:1551-6865
              DOI:10.1145/1412196
              Issue’s Table of Contents

              Copyright © 2008 ACM

              Publisher

              Association for Computing Machinery

              New York, NY, United States

              Publication History

              • Published: 6 November 2008
              • Accepted: 1 August 2008
              • Received: 1 July 2008
              Published in tomm Volume 4, Issue 4

              Permissions

              Request permissions about this article.

              Request Permissions

              Check for updates

              Qualifiers

              • research-article
              • Research
              • Refereed

            PDF Format

            View or Download as a PDF file.

            PDF

            eReader

            View online with eReader.

            eReader
            About Cookies On This Site

            We use cookies to ensure that we give you the best experience on our website.

            Learn more

            Got it!