Contributions to the future media internet using service-oriented architectures

Abstract

Nowadays, video streaming applications are the most bandwidth-hungry applications and this tendency is envisaged to grow exponentially. With the proliferation of multimedia capable devices, multimedia services have to deal with heterogeneous environments where very different types of terminals wish to receive content anywhere and anytime. This situation motivates the appearance of multimedia services that adapt contents to the specific context of users. These services can benefit from the use of different technologies for content delivery (e.g. Peer-to-Peer and Network Coding), media signalling (e.g. SIP and P2P protocols), media representation (e.g. MPEG-7 and MPEG-21) or multimedia scalable and robust codification (e.g. Multiple Description Coding and Scalable Video Coding). However, current Internet architecture is based on a rigid layered model (TCP/IP-based) following the, no longer valid, end-to-end argument, which makes difficult to introduce new functionalities efficiently. To solve this, Service Oriented Architectures (SOA) principles seem to fit in the proposal of new architectures for a more flexible Future Internet based on services that can be invoked when and where necessary. The objectives of this PhD. Thesis are exploring and validating different mechanisms for enabling Future Media Internet communications. To achieve this, we apply the SOA paradigm to provide efficient context-aware multimedia communications in the Future Internet. This work proposes solutions to enable the seamless provisioning of multimedia services in the Future Internet by means of context-aware service discovery and composition processes which are integrated in a novel service-oriented clean-slate architecture. One goal is to provide adapted and personalized services, dealing with high dynamic and heterogeneous environments. For this reason, this thesis includes research on novel media coding techniques (Multiple Description Coding, Scalable Video Coding) and distribution techniques (Peer-to-Peer, Network Coding) that can be applied to achieve seamless media communications. Moreover, context-aware service composition will address the requirements of media services (and any service in general), access methods, devices and interactions. This work presents a radical view of the Future Internet, where the necessary functionalities for accomplishing communications, in user devices, in the network and at all levels are considered as services. Services are not fixed but dynamically composed where and when necessary, with respect to user service requirements, network transfer capabilities and surrounding context in the user and the network environments. Composition of basic network-level services calls for a clean-slate approach to the Internet, while composition of higher level (transport and application) services prompts for an evolutionary approach. Nevertheless, composition of communication services manifests itself as a revolutionary way of looking communications and building communication systems. This PhD. Thesis introduces two main architectural innovations clearly beyond current state of the art. Firstly, a Service- Oriented framework able to deal with (existing) functionality at all levels (connectivity, transport, application) by considering the provided service and not the technology behind the functionality. All these service functionalities can be seen as services thanks to suitable service-oriented abstractions that allow including existing functionality/protocols as well as new functionality in a flexible way. Secondly, we present a novel service-oriented clean-slate architecture generalizing Information- Centric Networking (ICN) approaches. This work would propose the first clean-slate architecture completely aligned with the work done within the ISO Future Networks working group