Utility Proportional Optimization Flow Control for Overlay Multicast

There was a lot of interest in multicast communications within this decade as it is an essential part of many network applications, e.g. video-on-demand, etc. In this paper, we model flow rate allocation for application overlay as a utility based optimization problem constrained by capacity limitations of physical links and overlay constraints. The optimization flow control presented here addresses not only concave utility functions which are suitable for applications with elastic traffics, but also especial forms of non-concave utilities that are used to model applications with inelastic traffics, which might demand for hard delay and rate requirements. We then propose an iterative algorithm as the solution to the optimization flow control problem and investigate especial forms of non-concave utilities that are supported by this model. Simulation results show that the iterative algorithm can be used to deal with sigmoidal-like utilities which are useful for modeling real-time applications such as live streaming.