Title
Collaborative joint caching and transcoding in mobile edge networks.
Abstract
Video streaming has become a leading consumer of network resources in the last decade. Despite considerable developments, video content providers still face major challenges, which include minimizing data transfer from Content Delivery Network (CDN) or origin servers, CDN cost, and video startup delays. Recent edge computing technologies, such as Mobile Edge Computing (MEC) introduces new opportunities for Radio Access Networks (RANs) by providing computing and storage resources at the Mobile Base Stations (MBSs). Caching and processing videos at the edge networks relieve excessive data transfers over the backhaul links and minimize the viewers perceived delay. Collaborative caching and processing strategies have been proposed to efficiently utilize the edge resources, where neighboring MEC servers share the cached videos. However, such strategies introduce new challenges due to excessive backhaul links utilization for video sharing and limited resources. We propose a collaborative joint caching and processing strategy using the X2 network interface for sharing video data among multiple caches. Our design aims to minimize: (a) backhaul links usage for sharing video data, (b) network usage in transferring data from the CDN, (c) the viewer perceived delay, and (d) CDN cost. We also propose to fetch the higher bitrate version video from the origin/CDN servers and transcode it to the requested version on the fly to effectively use the Adaptive Bit Rate (ABR) streaming and online transcoding. This joint caching and processing approach is formulated as a minimization problem, subject to storage, processing, and bandwidth constraints. We also propose an online greedy algorithm that controls video transcoding, sharing using the X2 or backhaul links, and manages video caching and removing at the edge caches. Simulation results prove a better performance of our proposed algorithm compared to the recent edge caching approaches in terms of cost, average delay, cache removal, and cache hit ratio for different configurations.
Year
DOI
Venue
2019
10.1016/j.jnca.2019.02.004
Journal of Network and Computer Applications
Keywords
Field
DocType
Mobile Edge Computing,Collaborative caching and processing,Adaptive bitrate video transcoding,The X2 interface,Backhaul traffic
Edge computing,Content delivery network,Transcoding,Backhaul (telecommunications),Cache,Computer science,Server,Computer network,Mobile edge computing,Distributed computing,Network interface
Journal
Volume
ISSN
Citations 
136
1084-8045
1
PageRank 
References 
Authors
0.35
0
5
Name
Order
Citations
PageRank
Kashif Bilal144325.77
Emna Baccour2266.12
Aiman Erbad325131.97
Amr Mohamed45311.35
Mohsen Guizani56456557.44