A framework for modeling emerging multimedia applications

The convergence of multimedia applications with telecommunications networks has resulted in the need to create source traffic models for these new applications. These models are required for network performance evaluation purposes. A framework to model multimedia applications is outlined. By analyzing existing and prospective multimedia applications, it is possible to categorize multimedia applications as being made up of three basic components: block, transaction and streaming traffic. These three components are integrated to build a model for the multimedia traffic source. The framework outlined is versatile and allows modelers to build source traffic models for a large number of multimedia applications.