Management of multimedia resources: from a generic information model to its application to an MPEG2 video codec

Abstract

New open service architectures provide a management framework for telecommunications services, telecommunications networks and computing resources. However, the introduction of multimedia applications in these architectures will require the management of the underlying multimedia resources (e.g., codecs, converters, etc). Multimedia resources are the basic components that support multimedia communications. In this paper, we tackle this issue by proposing a generic management information model for multimedia resources and then instantiate it for the management of an MPEG2 video codec. This information model provides a data representation of the multimedia resources in order to manage them efficiently. KeywordsResource management, information model, MIB, SNMP, MPEG 2, video codec. IFIP INDC '96, Trondheim, Norway GZHV 2/17 consequence, the needs of connectivity with other multimedia users and sources across local and wide area networks are increasing. Therefore the new trend is towards networked multimedia applications. These applications are of real time and multipoint nature, and require large amount of processing, communication and storage resources.In this context, several multimedia resources have to be provided, such as video and audio codecs, media converters (e.g., conversion from text to audio), echo cancellors, and so forth. Since all resources (network resources as well as multimedia ones) involved in a communication session take part in the provision of the required Quality of Service (QoS), the characterization of multimedia resources becomes a necessary issue to be studied in order to identify the accurate parameters which are relevant for managing those resources' activities.Multimedia resources (also called information converters or special resources in some literature) are different from network resources, in that their processing tasks can highly affect the content of the incoming information. These observations result in the necessity for providing multimedia resources with a management framework. It is worth noting that this issue has not yet been tackled by the management community. To date, emphasis has been put on service management, network management and computing resources management, and on their integration. However, managing multimedia services will definitely require the management of multimedia resources.We have investigated two approaches for describing the management information related to multimedia resources. First, we have proposed a multimedia resource Management Information Base (MIB) , which contains the relevant objects for the management of multimedia resources. Our MIB has been designed to be compatible with the SNMP management protocol and thus has been specified using SMI (RFC1155, 1990. Secondly, we are proposing in this paper an object oriented specification of a generic information model of multimedia resources, i.e, the representation of multimedia resources in terms of data much easier to read and providing a more structured view of the information to be managed...

Service and network management in the OAMS open service architecture

“…In [11] we have proposed an information model for managing multimedia resources (e.g., video codec) and in [24], an information model for managing a host (e.g., UNIX terminal). The next step will be to encapsulate these models into computational objects and integrate them into the OAMS telecommunications service architecture for managing the resources used to provide multimedia applications; moreover they will help allocating resources for etablishing, maintaining and releasing multimedia service sessions at the service level more accurately.…”

“…OAMS objectives are similar to TINA [7], ROSA [8] and CASSIOPEIA [9] objectives (i.e., develop an Open Service Architecture), but the concepts from which OAMS is built are different from those of these latter projects, particularly with regard to service introduction with the definition of a methodological support to build telecommunication services [10], and service management with the provision of a framework to manage multimedia and host resources and user applications [11].…”

Untitled

“…Futhermore, the resource manager can obtain information about the behavior of these parameters. The management of the functions and their influencing parameters is the responsibility of the MpCodecManagement entity whose attributes should be selected among the MPEG2 bit-stream fields [6],as we did in [20]. In addition to the MpCodecManagement class, the Software_Element class aggregates an MpCodecEntity class.…”

“…Examples are the many management solutions based on the Web, such as the Web-Based Enterprise Management (WBEM) [22], the Java Management Application Programming Interface (JMAPI) [23], Webbin' [24], and [25]. While the previous version [20] of this work was implicitly targeted for management based on the Simple Network Management Protocol (SNMP) [26], the version described in this paper is more "generic", i.e., independent of management paradigms.…”

Service management: from definition to information modeling

“…As the network management parameters are well-known within the management community, the challenge will now be to point out features which are relevant for managing service devoted (or specific) systems. An early result can be found in [GZHV96], which describes system resources with the proposal of a generic information model furthermore applied to MPEG-2 video codecs. Figure 5 introduces an LCG in the framework of a videoconferencing session.…”