Online Control Techniques for Management of Shared Bandwidth in Multimedia Networks

In this paper, we provide an online monitor and control approach for adaptive bandwidth allocations in a QoS-aware multimedia network system. Accurate management of bandwidth allocations with a goal of maximizing the revenues is quite complex, due to the interactions among various data flows that dynamically share the network bandwidth. So, we adopt a heuristics-aided control that iteratively adjusts the bandwidth allocation based on the observed packet loss rate and delays. In terms of ’control theory’, the bandwidth allocation and the packet loss rate constitute the system input and output respectively, with the heuristics-based bandwidth adjustment strategies incorporated in a controller along the feedback loop. A ’control-theoretic’ treatment of the QoS adaptation problem allows studying the stability and convergence properties of the QoS delivered to the applications, while maximizing the connectivity service provider’s revenues.