Sending data to the cloud for analysis was a prominent trend during the past decades, driving cloud computing as a dominant computing paradigm. However, the dramatically increasing number of devices and data traffic in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) era are posing significant burdens on the capacity-limited Internet and uncontrollable service delay. It becomes difficult to meet the delay-sensitive and context-aware service requirements of IoT applications by using cloud computing alone. Facing these challenges, computing paradigms are shifting from the centralized cloud computing to distributed edge computing. Several new computing paradigms, including Transparent Computing, Mobile Edge Computing, Fog Computing, and Cloudlet, have emerged to leverage the distributed resources at network edge to provide timely and context-aware services. By integrating end devices, edge servers, and cloud, they form a hierarchical IoT architecture, i.e., End-Edge-Cloud orchestrated architecture to improve the performance of IoT systems. This article presents a comprehensive survey of these emerging computing paradigms from the perspective of end-edge-cloud orchestration. Specifically, we first introduce and compare the architectures and characteristics of different computing paradigms. Then, a comprehensive survey is presented to discuss state-of-the-art research in terms of computation offloading, caching, security, and privacy. Finally, some potential research directions are envisioned for fostering continuous research efforts.

A Survey on End-Edge-Cloud Orchestrated Network Computing Paradigms: Transparent Computing, Mobile Edge Computing, Fog Computing, and Cloudlet

Recently, many cities around the world have witnessed large-scale deployment of terrestrial broadcasting mobile television (TV) to vehicles. This service is similar to the cable or satellite TV already in the home, and user-centric interactive mobile Video-on-Demand (VoD) over urban vehicular networks is in fact expected. However, providing this new service with focus on user Quality of Experience (QoE) constitutes a significant challenge. This paper introduces a QoE-driven User-centric solution for VoD services in urban vehicular network environments (QUVoD). QUVoD relies on a multihomed hierarchical peer-to-peer (P2P) and vehicular ad-hoc network (VANET) architecture. Vehicles construct a low-layer VANET via Wireless Access in the Vehicular Environment interfaces; they also form an upper layer P2P Chord overlay on top of a cellular network via Fourth-Generation (4G) interfaces. A novel grouping-based storage strategy that uniformly distributes the video segments along the Chord overlay is proposed, reducing segment seeking traffic while also enabling load balancing. A novel segment seeking and multipath delivery scheme that achieves high lookup success rate and very good video data delivery efficiency is also introduced, which achieves high lookup success rate and very good video data delivery efficiency. Furthermore, a new speculation-based prefetching strategy is proposed, which analyses users' interactive viewing behavior and, by estimating video segment playback order, employs prefetching of the expected segments, smoothening the video playback. Simulation results show how QUVoD is a highly efficient user-centric mobile VoD solution in urban vehicular networks in comparison with existing state-of-the-art solutions.

QoE-Driven User-Centric VoD Services in Urban Multihomed P2P-Based Vehicular Networks

The massive proliferation of wireless infrastructures with complementary characteristics prompts the bandwidth aggregation for Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT) over heterogeneous access networks. Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is the standard transport-layer solution to enable CMT in multihomed communication environments. However, delivering high-quality streaming video with the existing CMT solutions still remains problematic due to the stringent QoS (Quality of Service) requirements and path asymmetry in heterogeneous wireless networks. In this paper, we advance the state of the art by introducing video distortion into the decision process of multipath data transfer. The proposed Distortion-Aware Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT-DA) solution includes three phases: 1) per-path status estimation and congestion control; 2) quality-optimal video flow rate allocation; 3) delay and loss controlled data retransmission. The term `flow rate allocation' indicates dynamically picking appropriate access networks and assigning the transmission rates. We analytically formulate the data distribution over multiple communication paths to minimize the end-to-end video distortion and derive the solution based on the utility maximization theory. The performance of the proposed CMT-DA is evaluated through extensive semi-physical emulations in Exata involving H.264 video streaming. Experimental results show that CMT-DA outperforms the reference schemes in terms of video PSNR (Peak Signal-to-Noise Ratio), goodput, and inter-packet delay.

Distortion-Aware Concurrent Multipath Transfer for Mobile Video Streaming in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The massive proliferation of wireless infrastructures with complementary characteristics prompts the bandwidth aggregation for Concurrent Multipath Transfer (CMT) over heterogeneous access networks. Stream Control Transmission Protocol (SCTP) is the standard transport-layer solution to enable CMT in multihomed communication environments. However, delivering high-quality streaming video with the existing CMT solutions still remains problematic due to the stringent quality of service (QoS) requirements and path asymmetry in heterogeneous wireless networks. In this paper, we advance the state of the art by introducing video distortion into the decision process of multipath data transfer. The proposed distortion-aware concurrent multipath transfer (CMT-DA) solution includes three phases: 1) per-path status estimation and congestion control; 2) quality-optimal video flow rate allocation; 3) delay and loss controlled data retransmission. The term ‘flow rate allocation’ indicates dynamically picking appropriate access networks and assigning the transmission rates. We analytically formulate the data distribution over multiple communication paths to minimize the end-to-end video distortion and derive the solution based on the utility maximization theory. The performance of the proposed CMT-DA is evaluated through extensive semi-physical emulations in Exata involving H.264 video streaming. Experimental results show that CMT-DA outperforms the reference schemes in terms of video peak signal-to-noise ratio (PSNR), goodput, and inter-packet delay.

High-quality services over wired and wireless networks require high bitrate network content delivery. Multipath transport protocols utilize multiple paths to support increased throughput for network applications. Ubiquitous mobile devices with multiple interfaces such as WiFi and 4G/5G cellular, and data centers supporting big data analysis and cloud-computing, motivate adoption of multipath transmission in current and future network architectures. Congestion control mechanisms play a fundamental role in these multipath transport protocols. Diverse approaches have been proposed in the literature, differing in terms of their goals, principles, performance, and mostly in how various issues are addressed in their design. This paper presents a survey of congestion control solutions for multipath transport protocols and discusses the multipath congestion control design in order to address the need for some desirable properties including TCP-friendliness, load balancing, stability, and Pareto optimality. Existing window-based and rate-based multipath congestion control algorithms are investigated and categorized based on their theoretical algorithm design. Next, this paper discusses the congestion control mechanisms used in diverse multipath transport protocols in the context of different network scenarios. Finally, the trends in the future multipath congestion control design are presented.

Congestion Control Design for Multipath Transport Protocols: A Survey

Mobile devices equipped with multiple network interfaces can increase their throughput by making use of parallel transmissions over multiple paths and bandwidth aggregation, enabled by the stream control transport protocol (SCTP) However, the different bandwidth and delay of the multiple paths will determine data to be received out of order and in the absence of related mechanisms to correct this, serious application-level performance degradations will occur This paper proposes a novel quality-aware adaptive concurrent multipath transfer solution (CMT-QA) that utilizes SCTP for FTP-like data transmission and real-time video delivery in wireless heterogeneous networks CMT-QA monitors and analyses regularly each path's data handling capability and makes data delivery adaptation decisions to select the qualified paths for concurrent data transfer CMT-QA includes a series of mechanisms to distribute data chunks over multiple paths intelligently and control the data traffic rate of each path independently CMT-QA's goal is to mitigate the out-of-order data reception by reducing the reordering delay and unnecessary fast retransmissions CMT-QA can effectively differentiate between different types of packet loss to avoid unreasonable congestion window adjustments for retransmissions Simulations show how CMT-QA outperforms existing solutions in terms of performance and quality of service

CMT-QA: Quality-Aware Adaptive Concurrent Multipath Data Transfer in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

The invention discloses a path estimating method which comprises the steps of: calculating a path quality estimating parameter according to a round-trip-delay, a packet loss probability and a congestion window of a path; dividing the path into an available path and an unavailable path according to the path quality estimating parameter; transmitting data on the available path and calculating the round-trip-delay, the packet loss probability and the congestion window of the path in a process of transmitting the data; and sending a heartbeat message in the unavailable path for calculating the round-trip-delay, the packet loss probability and the congestion window of the path. According to the invention, the path quality can be detected in real time, the path quality can be accurately calculated according to the simple parameter and the data transmission path is regulated and selected in real time, therefore the quality of the data transmission path is ensured, and the data is reliably transmitted. The path quality can be effectively estimated, and the transmission quality of streaming media data is improved.

Path estimating method and device

The invention discloses a data transmission method and relates to the field of data transmission of communication technique The method comprises a data transmission process of each path is divided into a plurality of non-overlapped periods to record time when data packets enter and leave a sending buffer memory in each period to calculate time when the data packets occupy the buffer memory; path quality is calculate in real time according to time when the data packets occupy the buffer memory and the size the data packets occupy the buffer memory; and paths with good quality are chosen periodically to be used as data transmission paths According to estimation results and by means of data distribution scheduling algorithm, multipath data transmission is intelligently distributed and scheduled, sequential arrival of data packets is guaranteed as possible, and new retransmission mechanisms are introduced to distinguish and process data packet loss caused by different factors The data transmission method can improve data transmission speed and quality, reduces data retransmission, reduces network load and furthermore improves experience effect of users of streaming media

Data transmission method and data transmission device

The invention discloses a method and a device for transmitting information and belongs to the technical field of communication The embodiment of the invention comprises the following steps of: classifying the information into sets with different priorities according to the priority of the information; evaluating the link quality of all links; allocating links to the sets with the different priorities sequentially according to the link quality; and transmitting the information to a receiving end according to the allocated links According to the embodiment of the invention, the link quality of all the available links can be evaluated by classifying the information, and all the classified information sets are allocated with the transmission links sequentially and are transmitted, so that standby links are fully used, and network resources are saved

Liu Tianjiao

Papers

CMT-QA: Quality-Aware Adaptive Concurrent Multipath Data Transfer in Heterogeneous Wireless Networks

Path estimating method and device

Data transmission method and data transmission device

Method and device for transmitting information

Method and system for storing video logs