A network channel buffer scheduling algorithm for an interactive VOD server

A VOD server handles various types of media such as continuous media (CM) and non-continuous media (NM). Conventional VOD server buffer scheduling algorithms like Round Robin (RR) and Earliest Deadline First (EDF) have tradeoffs between guaranteeing the deadline of CM and getting a fast response time of NM. The former performs well in a NM environment while the latter is suitable for CM. In this paper, we present a network channel buffer scheduling algorithm to support VOD server based on the dynamic-Critical Task Indicating algorithm which was developed by the authors. The goal of the proposed algorithm is to get fast response time for NM while guaranteeing the deadlines of CM. Our simulation study show that the proposed algorithm demonstrates a similar blocking rate for CM, however considerable improvement of the average response time for NM compared to EDF scheduling.