|
Recently, the concept of Mobile Cloud Computing (MCC) has been proposed to offload the resource requirements in
computational capabilities, storage and security from mobile devices into the cloud. Internet video applications such as
real-time streaming are expected to be ubiquitously deployed and supported over the cloud for mobile users, who
typically encounter a range of wireless networks of diverse radio access technologies during their roaming. However,
real-time video streaming for mobile cloud users across heterogeneous wireless networks presents multiple challenges.
The network-layer quality of service (QoS) provision to support high-quality mobile video delivery in this demanding
scenario remains an open research question, and this in turn affects the application-level visual quality and impedes
mobile users' perceived quality of experience (QoE).
In this paper, we devise a framework to support real-time video streaming in this new mobile video networking paradigm
and evaluate the performance of the proposed framework empirically through a lab-based yet realistic testing platform.
One particular issue we focus on is the effect of users' mobility on the QoS of video streaming over the cloud. We design
and implement a hybrid platform comprising of a test-bed and an emulator, on which our concept of mobile cloud
computing, video streaming and heterogeneous wireless networks are implemented and integrated to allow the testing of
our framework. As representative heterogeneous wireless networks, the popular WLAN (Wi-Fi) and MAN (WiMAX)
networks are incorporated in order to evaluate effects of handovers between these different radio access technologies.
The H.264/AVC (Advanced Video Coding) standard is employed for real-time video streaming from a server to mobile
users (client nodes) in the networks. Mobility support is introduced to enable continuous streaming experience for a
mobile user across the heterogeneous wireless network. Real-time video stream packets are captured for analytical
purposes on the mobile user node. Experimental results are obtained and analysed. Future work is identified towards
further improvement of the current design and implementation.
With this new mobile video networking concept and paradigm implemented and evaluated, results and observations
obtained from this study would form the basis of a more in-depth, comprehensive understanding of various challenges
and opportunities in supporting high-quality real-time video streaming in mobile cloud over heterogeneous wireless
networks.
|
