PFCF: An Effective VBR Stream Scheduling Algorithm for Clustered Media Systems

Abstract

Recently, prefetching protocols that can achieve near 100% network utilization, while still keeping a negligible packet loss, have been proposed. However, none of them focuses on providing conflict-free network transmission on clustered multimedia systems, which has been proven to be a major factor affecting system throughput in our previous research works. To investigate the feasibility and efficiency of scheduling VBR traffic on clustered multimedia systems, we propose a novel VBR stream scheduling called PFCF (PreFetching Conflict-Free) VBR stream scheduling algorithm, based on Shortest-Detain-First (SDF) block selection policy. The simulation results on normal playout show its superior schedulability by achieving near 100% network utilization with negligible video block loss. In addition, its unique even distribution of dropped sub-blocks further reduces the impact of late video blocks on the quality of playout.