Dynamic network bandwidth allocation for multimedia applications with soft quality-of-service requirements

Claim 2

A distributed multimedia system having a soft quality of support comprising: a plurality of clients; a plurality of servers; and a network; wherein each of said plurality of clients further comprises an application and a network interface card, wherein each of said plurality of servers further comprises a terminal quality of service controller, a data source and a server network interface card, and wherein said network provides soft quality of service support to said plurality of clients and said plurality of servers.

Claim 3

The distributed multimedia system of claim 2 wherein said network further comprises: a backbone network; an access network; a quality of service controller; wherein said quality of service controller is attached to said access network; and wherein said quality of service controller uses soft quality of service.

Claim 4

The distributed multimedia system of claim 1 wherein said soft quality of service has a satisfaction index and a softness profile.

Claim 5

The distributed multimedia system of claim 2 wherein said soft quality of service has a satisfaction index and a softness profile.

Claim 6

The distributed multimedia system of claim 3 wherein said plurality of service controller is a personal computer.

Claim 7

The distributed multimedia system of claim 3 wherein said quality of service controller is embedded.

Claim 8

The distributed multimedia system of claim 3 wherein said backbone network comprises an edge switch and wherein said quality of service controller resides in said edge switch.

Claim 9

The distributed multimedia system of claim 3 wherein said quality of service controller is distributed in said backbone network.

Claim 10

The distributed multimedia system of claim 3 wherein an application can request bandwidth from a server and network in terms of soft quality of service while connection is in progress, said application can renegotiate soft quality of service requirements, wherein said quality of service controllers compute and negotiates bit-rate necessary to maintain quality.

Claim 11

The distributed multimedia system of claim 3 wherein said data source is a multimedia bit-rate source.

Claim 12

The distributed multimedia system of claim 4 wherein said softness profile is defined using a satisfaction index and a bandwidth ratio, wherein said bandwidth ratio is further defined as a ratio of allocated bandwidth to requested bandwidth.

Claim 13

The distributed multimedia system of claim 4 wherein said satisfaction index is graded from 2 - 5 with a granularity of G and said bandwidth ratio is graded from 0 - 1.

Claim 14

The distributed multimedia system of claim 4 wherein the softness profile for a bandwidth ratio r is calculated using the following formula: wherein A, B and C are three numbers that characterize bandwidth requirements of a client application and its performance requirement, 1 ≥ A > B > C ≥ 0, and S(r) represents the softness profile as satisfaction index and bandwidth ratio.

Claim 15

The distributed multimedia system of claim 5 wherein said softness profile is defined using a satisfaction index and a bandwidth ratio, wherein said bandwidth ratio is further defined as a ratio of allocated bandwidth to requested bandwidth.

Claim 16

The distributed multimedia system of claim 5 wherein said satisfaction index is graded from 2 - 5 with a granularity of G and said bandwidth ratio is graded from 0 - 1.

Claim 17

The distributed multimedia system of claim 5 wherein the softness profile for a bandwidth ratio r is calculated using the following formula: wherein A, B and C are three numbers that characterize bandwidth requirements of a client application and its performance requirement, 1 ≥ A > B > C ≥ 0, and r(s) represents the bandwidth ratio.

Claim 18

The distributed multimedia system of claim 10 wherein said renegotiation can be invoked by a user or said network.

Claim 19

The distributed multimedia system of claim 10 wherein said renegotiation is sent to network elements.

Claim 20

The distributed multimedia system of claim 11 wherein said quality of service is in the form of frame rate and frame detail.

Claim 21

The distributed multimedia system of claim 11 wherein said multimedia bit-rate source uses rate control to scale its bit-rate and quality.

Claim 23

The method of claim 22 wherein step d comprises: d1) making a preliminary allocation at output port; d2) computing a satisfaction index; d3) using a reallocation algorithm to reclaim additional bandwidth if said satisfaction index is low.

Claim 24

A reallocation method to reallocate bandwidth in a network, said network comprising a plurality of donor connections and a recipient connection, said recipient connection and each of said donor connections being associated with a respective satisfaction profile each, wherein each said satisfaction profile maximizes a preselected minimum satisfaction index, and wherein each said satisfaction profile is within a preselected acceptable range after reallocation.

Claim 25

A reallocation method to reallocate bandwidth in a network, said network comprising a plurality of donor connections and a recipient connection, said recipient connection and each of said donor connections being associated with a respective satisfaction profile each, said method comprising: a) identifying said donor connections with higher satisfaction index; b) identifying a subset of said donor connections with allocated bandwidth higher than a preselected value; c) calculating amount of bandwidth to be released by each of said subset of said donor connections using softness profiles, such that remaining bandwidth for each of said subset of donor connections reduces a preselected satisfaction index by a unit of granularity G; d) repeating steps a - c until the satisfaction index of said recipient connection is within a preselected acceptable region or until satisfaction index of at least one of said subset of donor connection reaches a preselected minimum satisfaction; and f) requesting for more bandwidth from network layer if at least one of said subset of donor connections reaches the preselected minimum satisfaction.

Claim 26

The method of claim 25 wherein step b comprises: b1) determining a pruning threshold; and b2) including a donor connection in said subset of donor connections if said pruning threshold times bandwidth curtently allocated to said donor connection is larger than bandwidth required.

Claim 28

The method as in claim 27 wherein said function has a low region and an acceptable region, wherein said low region being from 0 - 3 and said acceptable region being from 3 - 5.

Claim 29

The method of claim 27 wherein said bandwidth ratio is graded from 0 - 1.

Claim 33

A method of claim 32 wherein step d comprises: d1) determining whether a request is a call arrival or call departure; d2) performing call arrival procedures if step d is a call arrival; and d3) performing call departure procedures if step d is a call departure.

Claim 34

The method of claim 32 wherein said advertising is performed using reference profile parameters [R B , Δ max , S H -1 (sat min )], wherein R B is a base-line rate, Δ max is a maximum expected excursion from R B and S H -1 is the steepest satisfaction profile to be used during a session.

Claim 35

The method of claim 32 wherein said soft-UPC parameters are (λ s / p , λ s / s , B s / s) defined by the formula: wherein T on is an on period that models a source's bit-rate, R B is the base-line rate, Δ max is a maximum expected excursion from R B and S H -1 is a steepest satisfaction profile to be used during a session.

Claim 36

The method of claim 32 wherein said two-state model is a model wherein high and low rates (λ H , λ L ) occur with probabilities P on according to the following formula: wherein (λ s / p, λ s / s , B s / s) are said soft-UPC parameter, T on is an on period that models a source's bit-rate, C is a link bandwidth for a connection, B is a buffer space for the connection, and T N = B/2C .

Claim 37

The method of claim 32 wherein said mean m i and variance S 2 / i are calculated using: wherein i refers to a connection, R B (i) is a baseline rate for the connection, S -1 / H (i)(sat min ) is a bandwidth ration corresponding to sat min , λ s / H and λ s / L are high and low rates, Δ max is a maximum expected excursion from R B (i) and P on is a probability of λ s / H occurring.

Claim 38

The method of claim 33 wherein said call arrival procedure comprises: d21) adding mean M R and variance S 2 / R to respective sums; d22) calculating a decision function L; d23) receiving bandwidth for connection if said decision function L is 0; d24) subtracting means M R and variance S 2 / R from sums if said decision function L is not 0; and d25) informing source of results.

Claim 39

The method of claim 33 wherein said call departure procedure comprises: d31) releasing bandwidth of connection; d32) subtracting mean and variance from respective sums; and d33) informing source of results.

Claim 40

The method of claim 38 wherein said decision function L is calculated using the formula: wherein M new / R and S 2 new / R are new mean and variance M old / R and S 2 old / R are old mean and variance  is a gaussian distribution function δ N is a maximum low satisfaction index and C is a link bandwidth.

Claim 41

The method of claim 38 wherein said adding is performed according to the formula: wherein M new / R and S 2 new / R are new mean and variance, M old / R and S 2 old / R are old mean and variance,  is a gaussian distribution function, C is a link bandwidth, λ H and λ L are high and low rates, P on is a probability of λ H occurring.

Claim 42

The method of claim 38 wherein said subtracting is performed according to the formula: wherein M new / R and S 2 new / R are new mean and variance, M old / R and S 2 old / R are old mean and variance,  is a gaussian distribution function, C is a link bandwidth, λ H and λ L are high and low rates, P on is a probability of λ H occurring.

Claim 43

A computer program product for providing a soft-QoS support to a distributed multimedia system, the computer program product including a computer readable medium comprising: a computer-readable quality of service code, wherein said admission control code controls the admission of a new connection, wherein said new connection requests service with a soft quality of service, wherein said quality of service code enables the system to accept or reject said new connection based on said soft quality of support.

Claim 44

A communication network system characterized in that: provision is made about a network resource which realizes admissible performance of an application on the basis of a soft quality of service (QoS) smoothly controlling a service of quality.

Claim 45

A communication network system as claimed in claim 1, characterized in that: said network resource is a bandwidth.

Claim 46

A communication network as claimed in claim 2, characterized in that: the soft-QoS is defined by a softness profile.

Claim 47

A communication network system as claimed in claim 3, characterized in that: the softness profile is defined by a satisfaction index indicative of a degree of satisfaction related to a quality and a bandwidth ratio between a bandwidth required by the application and a bandwidth actually allocated to the application.