Exploiting NFV techniques towards future VQA methods

This paper introduces a novel approximation of the widely used full reference SSIM metric, ideal for the in-network assessment of QoE for multimedia streams. The QoE estimation approximation algorithm has been implemented as a Virtualised Network Function (VNF) in order to be deployed over Network Function Virtualisation (NFV) infrastructures. The proposed method is based on a two steps evaluation process, making use of a test pattern as an intermediate reference according to which the quality of the original and degraded signal is estimated and expands the applicability of SSIM as a reduced reference metric. For the evaluation of the proposed method as a VNF, a laboratory-scale prototype NFV infrastructure was used, supporting dynamic steering of selected video flows towards the proposed nQoEe estimator VNF via an SDN Control Plane application using OpenFlow protocol for the communication with the physical and virtual switches. The evaluation results validate the efficiency of the proposed method as a VNF, in addition the reported accuracy of the proposed method is proven as satisfactory with an average estimation error of 5%.