A new hybrid heuristic for replica placement and request distribution in content distribution networks

In Content Distribution Networks (CDN), in order to better serve clients, it is necessary to replicate contents at surrogate servers and distribute requests using such servers. The decisions of where to place replicated contents and how to distribute clients can be modeled as an optimization problem known as Replica Placement and Request Distribution Problem (RPRDP). In this paper we use a model that regards several realistic details that are not treated simultaneously in the literature, such as: constraints in server disk space and bandwidth, QoS requirements of requests and changes in the network conditions. Also, a new hybrid method, that uses exact and heuristic concepts simultaneously, is presented to solve the RPRDP. We compared the results obtained by the proposed algorithm with: a bound obtained by an exact offline approach, a solution of a real CDN provider and other hybrid heuristics. Results show that the proposed method outperforms the solution used in real CDNs and also in all other studied methods.

[1]  Jussara M. Almeida,et al.  Dynamic content distribution for mobile enterprise networks , 2005, IEEE Journal on Selected Areas in Communications.

[2]  Keith W. Ross,et al.  Computer networking - a top-down approach featuring the internet , 2000 .

[3]  Stephen J. Wright,et al.  Minimizing delivery cost in scalable streaming content distribution systems , 2004, IEEE Transactions on Multimedia.

[4]  Lynda L. McGhie,et al.  World Wide Web , 2011, Encyclopedia of Information Assurance.

[5]  SharmaAbhigyan,et al.  Distributing content simplifies ISP traffic engineering , 2013 .

[6]  David K. Smith.  Network Flows: Theory, Algorithms, and Applications , 1994 .

[7]  Ju-Liang Zhang,et al.  Capacitated facility location problem with general setup cost , 2006, Comput. Oper. Res..

[8]  B. Dhoedt,et al.  Load balancing through efficient distributed content placement , 2005, Next Generation Internet Networks, 2005.

[9]  M Ould-khaoua.  Replication algorithms for the Wide World Web , 2004 .

[10]  Jianliang Xu,et al.  On replica placement for QoS-aware content distribution , 2004, IEEE INFOCOM 2004.

[11]  Iradj Ouveysi,et al.  Designing cost-effective content distribution networks , 2007, Comput. Oper. Res..

[12]  Tarek F. Abdelzaher,et al.  Towards content distribution networks with latency guarantees , 2004, Twelfth IEEE International Workshop on Quality of Service, 2004. IWQOS 2004..

[13]  Lúcia Maria de A. Drummond,et al.  Solving Replica Placement and Request Distribution in Content Distribution Networks , 2010, Electron. Notes Discret. Math..

[14]  Cheng-Zhong Xu,et al.  Efficient algorithms of video replication and placement on a cluster of streaming servers , 2007, J. Netw. Comput. Appl..

[15]  Hans Kellerer,et al.  Knapsack problems , 2004 .

[16]  Novella Bartolini,et al.  Optimal dynamic replica placement in content delivery networks , 2003, The 11th IEEE International Conference on Networks, 2003. ICON2003..

[17]  Doctoral Thesis,et al.  Instituto de Matematica Pura e Aplicada , 2009 .

[18]  Pedro A. Morettin,et al.  Previsão de séries temporais , 1985 .

[19]  Ravindra K. Ahuja,et al.  Network Flows , 2011 .

[20]  Arun Venkataramani,et al.  Distributing content simplifies ISP traffic engineering , 2012, SIGMETRICS '13.