Segment-based streaming media proxy: modeling and optimization

Researchers often use segment-based proxy caching strategies to deliver streaming media by partially caching media objects. The existing strategies mainly consider increasing the byte hit ratio and/or reducing the client perceived startup latency (denoted by the metric delayed startup ratio). However, these efforts do not guarantee continuous media delivery because the to-be-viewed object segments may not be cached in the proxy when they are demanded. The potential consequence is playback jitter at the client side due to proxy delay in fetching the uncached segments, which we call proxy jitter. Thus, for the best interests of clients, a correct model for streaming proxy system design should aim to minimize proxy jitter subject to reducing the delayed startup ratio and increasing the byte hit ratio. However, we have observed two major pairs of conflicting interests inherent in this model: (1) one between improving the byte hit ratio and reducing proxy jitter, and (2) the other between improving the byte hit ratio and reducing the delayed startup ratio. In this study, we first propose and analyze prefetching methods for in-time prefetching of uncached segments, which provides insights into the first pair of conflicting interests. Second, to address the second pair of the conflicting interests, we build a general model to analyze the performance tradeoff between the second pair of conflicting performance objectives. Finally, considering our main objective of minimizing proxy jitter and optimizing the two tradeoffs, we propose a new streaming proxy system called Hyper Proxy. Synthetic and real workloads are used to evaluate our system. The performance results show that Hyper Proxy generates minimum proxy jitter with a low delayed startup ratio and a small decrease of byte hit ratio compared with existing schemes.