Network coding for survivable multicast video streaming networks

Abstract

To ensure the robust delivery of video streams, a network must emit additional data that will replace the missing ones in case of a failure of some server. One key issue is then to keep this so-called redundancy as low as possible while still ensuring some quality of service. In this paper, we provide protectionoriented models to compute the minimum level of redundancy ensuring that every customer still receives its required stream whatever failure scenario occurs. In particular, our models allow us to compare the optimal redundancy in the multicast delivery of video streams with and without the use of network coding, a technique that allows to perform coding operations within the network. Our computational experiments show that the use of network coding helps to reduce the redundancy in many realistic network settings.