A new framework for managing video-on-demand servers: quad-tier hybrid architecture

Abstract

This paper proposes a new framework for managing large number of Video-on-Demand requests using the quad-tier hybrid architecture. This architecture provision four tiers to serve on-demand video requests and videos are mirrored to every tier based on a time-weighted popularity (TP) index derived from subscribers' log. Tier-1 Near-Server and Tier-2 Quasi-Server 'broadcast' most popular video while Tier-3 True-Server, located closer to subscribers, serve ad hoc on-demand video request using multicast protocol. Tier-4 Subscriber preloads frequently watch videos into the set-up-box for instantaneous playback. We propose suitable operational condition and evaluate the proposed TP index in the discussion.