An Optimization based approach to maximizing QoS assurance for IPTV triple play services on the internet backbone

QoS-aware network planning becomes increasingly important for large network operators and ISPs as the number and heterogeneity of applications supported by networks continues to increase. This paper proposes a novel approach to performing residual bandwidth optimization with QoS guarantee to support IPTV services on the Internet backbone. The approach combines the use of a new highly scalable hybrid GAVNS algorithm (genetic algorithm with variable neighborhood search) with the efficient and accurate estimation of QoS requirements using empirical effective bandwidth estimations. The QoS requirements for expected traffic are estimated using a relatively small number of traffic samples for different traffic classes and a QoS-aware demand matrix is built based on the calculated effective bandwidth and expected mean rates. This paper further proposes a strategy to perform content replication to mitigate network load caused by VoD (video on demand) traffic component of IPTV traffic. Given such a demand matrix, experimental results indicate that the GA-VNS algorithm shows significantly better performance in comparison to OSPF in terms of link utilization distribution, maximum link utilization, rejection rate and suitability to incorporate content replication. Additional results indicate that GA-VNS algorithm is very effective under dynamic conditions when the knowledge of previous route plan is taken into consideration.