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Paper accepted – CSDN: CDN-Aware QoE Optimization in SDN-Assisted HTTP Adaptive Video Streaming

Conference info: The 46th IEEE Conference on Local Computer Networks (LCN) October 4-7, 2021

Authors: Reza Farahani (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Farzad Tashtarian (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Hadi Amirpour (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Christian Timmerer (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt), Mohammad Ghanbari (School of Computer Science and Electronic Engineering, University of Essex, Colchester, UK) and Hermann Hellwagner (Alpen-Adria-Universität Klagenfurt)

Abstract: With the increasing demand for video streaming applications, HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) technology has become the dominant video delivery technique over the Internet. Current HAS solutions only consider either client- or server-side optimization, which causes many problems in achieving high-quality video, leading to sub-optimal users’ experience and network resource utilization. Recent studies have revealed that network-assisted HAS techniques, by providing a comprehensive view of the network, can lead to more significant gains in HAS system performance. Read more

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FFG project “Kärntner Fog” accepted

The project “Kärntner Fog” has been accepted in the BRIDGE funding call of FFG.

Abstract: Kärntner Fog aims to contribute with advanced technologies for the distributed optimized provisioning and operation of 5G applications in Austria. For this purpose, it researches and develops a unique infrastructure testbed called the Carinthian Computing Continuum (C3), consisting of heterogeneous Cloud, Fog, and 5G‐Edge devices orchestrated through novel benchmarking, monitoring, analysis, and provisioning services. The project will validate its results using modern virtual reality and smart city use cases in the 5G Playground Carinthia. The results will give companies a competitive technological advantage in exploring 5G‐compliant applications in preparation for the deployment of an Austrian‐wide 5G network by 2025.

Partners:

Alpen-Adria Universität Klagenfurt, ITEC

Fachhochschule Kärnten

siplan gmbh

Project duration: 36 months

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Christian Doppler ‘pilot’ laboratory ATHENA to transition to a regular CD laboratory

Successful review of the first research phase: Christian Doppler ‘pilot’ laboratory ATHENA to transition to a regular CD laboratory two years after launch. Read more about it at ATHENA website and the press release at AAU website.

 

Dragi Kimovski
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Paper accepted in IEEE Transactions on Services Computing (TSC)

The manuscript “Mobility-Aware IoT Application Placement in the Cloud — Edge Continuum” has been accepted for publication in the A* (IF: 5.823) Journal – IEEE Transactions on Services Computing (TSC).

Autors: Dragi Kimovski, Narges Mehran, Christopher Kerth, Radu Prodan

Abstract: The Edge computing extension of the Cloud services towards the network boundaries raises important placement challenges for IoT applications running in a heterogeneous environment with limited computing capacities. Unfortunately, existing works only partially address this challenge by optimizing a single or aggregate objective (e.g., response time), and not considering the edge devices’ mobility and resource constraints. To address this gap, we propose a novel mobility-aware multi-objective IoT application placement (mMAPO) method in the Cloud – Edge Continuum that optimizes completion time, energy consumption, and economic cost as conflicting objectives. mMAPO utilizes a Markov model for predictive analysis of the Edge device mobility and constrains the optimization to devices that do not frequently move through the network. We evaluate the quality of the mMAPO placements using simulation and real-world experimentation on two IoT applications. Compared to related work, mMAPO reduces the economic cost by 28% and decreases the completion time by 80% while maintaining a stable energy consumption.

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Bitmovin takes on classroom sponsorship at the University of Klagenfurt

Bitmovin will be sponsoring a classroom in the area of Computer Science for the next five years, starting in June 2021, and thus continuing the long-standing successful cooperation with the University of Klagenfurt.

Read more about our project partner Bitmovin here.

 

Hadi
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Hadi Amirpour appointed co-chair of IMEx

Hadi Amirpour has been appointed co-chair of Task Force 7 (TF7)
Immersive Media Experience (IMEx) at the 15th Qualinet meeting

Co-chairs:

 

TF7: Immersive Media Experiences (IMEx)

Immersive media applications are entering our daily lives starting from VR/AR/360° video applications to multi-sensory/multimedia experiences potentially addressing all human senses rather than focusing on hearing and seeing. The overall goal of providing Immersive Media Experiences (IMEx) to end-users is giving them the sensation of being part of the particular media which shall result in a worthwhile, informative user and quality of experience.

The actual objectives of this task force are as follows:

  • disseminating the white paper
  • working towards submission of the extended version
  • liaison with other communities (UX, sensory sciences) and standards developing organizations (JPEG, MPEG, EBU)
  • Identification of different QoE aspects of immersive experiences
  • QoE models and QoE assessment approaches for immersive experiences, addressing various audiovisual modalities; e.g. HDR, omnidirectional video, light fields, point clouds, and spatial audio.
Nishant Saurabh
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Nishant Saurabh completed his PhD at the University of Innsbruck with a thesis on a “On Semantics and Pareto (Inter-) Dependencies for Resource Management In IaaS Clouds” under the supervision of Prof. Radu Prodan.

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Paper about: Energy Consumption Analysis of R-Based Machine Learning Algorithms for Pandemic Predictions

 

Authors: Shajulin Benedict, Prateek Agrawal, Radu Prodan

Link: Advanced Informatics for Computing Research, CCIS-Springer, 4th ICAICR 2020, Vol. 1393

Abstract: The push for agile pandemic analytic solutions has attained development-stage software modules of applications instead of functioning as full-fledged production-stage applications – i.e., performance, scalability, and energy-related concerns are not optimized for the underlying computing domains. And while the research continues to support the idea that reducing the energy consumption of algorithms improves the lifetime of battery-operated machines, advisable tools in almost any developer setting, an energy analysis report for R-based analytic programs is indeed a valuable suggestion. This article proposes an energy analysis framework for R-programs that enables data analytic developers, including pandemic-related application developers, to analyze the programs. It reveals an energy analysis report for R programs written to predict the new cases of 215 countries using random forest variants. Experiments were carried out at the IoT cloud research lab and the energy efficiency aspects were discussed in the article. In the experiments, ranger-based prediction program consumed 95.8 J.

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Christian Timmerer to give a Keynote at the 35th Picture Coding Symposium 2021

HTTP Adaptive Streaming – Quo Vadis?

Christian Timmerer, Tuesday, June 29, 2021

35th Picture Coding Symposium (PCS) 2021

Abstract: Video traffic on the Internet is constantly growing; networked multimedia applications consume a predominant share of the available Internet bandwidth. A major technical breakthrough and enabler in multimedia systems research and of industrial networked multimedia services certainly was the HTTP Adaptive Streaming (HAS) technique. This resulted in the standardization of MPEG Dynamic Adaptive Streaming over HTTP (MPEG-DASH) which, together with HTTP Live Streaming (HLS), is widely used for multimedia delivery in today’s networks. Existing challenges in multimedia systems research deal with the trade-off between (i) the ever-increasing content complexity, (ii) various requirements with respect to time (most importantly, latency), and (iii) quality of experience (QoE). Optimizing towards one aspect usually negatively impacts at least one of the other two aspects if not both.

This situation sets the stage for our research work in the ATHENA Christian Doppler (CD) Laboratory (Adaptive Streaming over HTTP and Emerging Networked Multimedia Services; https://athena.itec.aau.at/), jointly funded by public sources and industry.

In this talk, we will present selected novel approaches and research results of the first year of the ATHENA CD Lab’s operation. We will highlight HAS-related research on (i) multimedia content provisioning (machine learning for video encoding); (ii) multimedia content delivery (support of edge processing and virtualized network functions for video networking); (iii) multimedia content consumption and end-to-end aspects (player-triggered segment retransmissions to improve video playout quality); and (iv) novel QoE investigations (adaptive point cloud streaming). We will also put the work into the context of the international multimedia systems research.

Nishant Saurabh
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Paper accepted in Elsevier’s Journal of Blockchain: Research and Applications

Authors: Nikita Karandikar, Rockey Abhishek, Nishant Saurabh, Zhiming Zhao, Alexander Lercher, Ninoslav Marina, Radu Prodan, Chunming Rong, Antorweep Chakravorty

DOI: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.bcra.2021.100016

Abstract: Peak mitigation is of interest to power companies as peak periods may require the operator to over provision supply in order to meet the peak demand. Flattening the usage curve can result in cost savings, both for the power companies and the end users. Integration of renewable energy into the energy infrastructure presents an opportunity to use excess renewable generation to supplement supply and alleviate peaks. In addition, demand side management can shift the usage from peak to off peak times and reduce the magnitude of peaks. In this work, we present a data driven approach for incentive based peak mitigation. Understanding user energy profiles is an essential step in this process. We begin by analysing a popular energy research dataset published by the Ausgrid corporation. Extracting aggregated user energy behavior in temporal contexts and semantic linking and contextual clustering give us insight into consumption and rooftop solar generation patterns. We implement, and performance test a blockchain based prosumer incentivization system. The smart contract logic is based on our analysis of the Ausgrid dataset. Our implementation is capable of supporting 792,540 customers with a reasonably low infrastructure footprint.