QoE-aware Resource Provisioning and Adaptation in IMS-based IPTV Using OpenFlow

Thu Huong-Truong, Nguyen Huu Thanh, Nguyen Tai Hung

Hanoi University of Science and Technology (HUST) Hanoi, Vietnam {huong.truongthu, thanh.nguyenhuu, hung.nguyentai}@hust.vn AbstractThis article presents the architecture design and experimental evaluation of a QoE-aware flexible-QoS-control next-generation IPTV network. The architecture extends the IMS service control functionality by providing an efficient application-specific service control approach based on user satisfaction on the connectivity. The validation NGN testbed uses OpenFlow network virtualization between individual components.
KeywordsSDN, Openflow, IMS, QoE

Julius Mueller(1), Thomas Magedanz(2)

(1) Technical University Berlin (2) Fraunhofer FOKUS Institute Berlin, Germany julius.mueller@tu-berlin.de, Thomas.magedanz@fokus.frauenhofer.de the connectivity to achieve smart usage of the network resources. The third issue is how it can impose the QoS policies as well as other per-session network configurations on the underlying network infrastructure in a dynamic way; for instance, routing, CODEC modification, adaptive bitrates, bandwidth reservation, traffic prioritization etc. In the recent years, the research and industrial communities have been paying much attention on the Software Defined Networking (SDN) and OpenFlow [2]. OpenFlow allows separating the control plane and data plane, thus offers a new flexibility to reconfigure, customize, and deploy different underlying networking paradigms. Motivating by the above issues, our main contributions for designing the innovative IPTV architecture are: (1) Design a novel QoE-aware IPTV network architecture that integrates IMS overlay with the underlying Openflow network infrastructure that can adapt network resources and service characteristics based on users requirements. It allows users to rate their service satisfaction at ubiquitous devices and enables service-aware networking through user-demanded QoS requests. (2) Build up a real testbed for development of new IPTV services, network control mechanisms, and for measurement and analysis. II. RELATED WORKS

I.

INTRODUCTION

IMS-based IPTV nowadays has stood out as a promising architecture for the most-exciting new IP-based services. By making use of the IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) [6] as the control overlay for IPTV, the new architecture offers a wide range of new features compared to the conventional solutions. Furthermore, with the session and service control capabilities, IMS can be used as the layer to control users Quality-ofService (QoS) and provision the corresponding resources on the underlying network. However, until now there still exist some issues that are not completely solved in the existing IPTV architectures. The fist issue is how to guarantee the quality of IPTV services in a more user-centric way than todays networkcentric QoS mechanisms. Recent research has demonstrated that guaranteeing QoS does not necessarily ensure users satisfaction [1]. Therefore, the future multimedia services should be delivered based on clients perceptual quality requirements, or Quality-of-Experience [1]. Unfortunately, the existing IMS overlay infrastructure does not specify any QoEaware mechanism within its service provisioning control system. The second issue is how to dynamically map QoE of IPTV sessions to network-centric QoS parameters and provision the corresponding network resources efficiently, so that users service perception is satisfied while network resources are optimized based on current network conditions. We previously proposed a designed concept called the Generic-AdaptiveResource Control (GARC) [3]. Incoming meta-data application requirements (QoE) from the application layer are translated into network specific requests by the mediation layer, then crossing over standardized interface towards the underlying network. GARC applies different service control mechanisms for each specific application and individual on

To the best of our knowledge, research [5] could be closest to our research. However, the cross-layer adaptation is only in the bottom-up direction that reports the network condition to the user terminal to adapt codec and bit rate. The architecture is not able to adapt application requirements to QoS settings in the top-down direction. Moreover, the IP core network is assumed to be MPLS that cannot enable the SDN benefit. III. THE ARCHITECTURAL DESIGN

The whole concept is implemented in a testbed infrastructure set up in our lab that helped us to prototype new multimedia, rich-feature communication services using IMS framework; investigating the impact of network conditions up on users perception of the provided services; and checking QoS control within Openflow real-time scenarios. The testbed consists of three layers as illustrated in Figure 1.

Based on the established mapping function with different QoS profiles that translates user-centric QoE requirements to corresponding network-centric QoS parameters, QoS modification decisions can be: changing the network configuration to get better transmission delay or packet loss rate within the transport network. The policy is then enforced on the Openflow protocol. IV. SUPPORTED INTERFACES AND CALL-FLOWS

This section outlines the detailed reference point description and functionalities. The presented approach is backwards compatible with existing 3GPP network and Policy-Control-and-Charging architectures, therefore standardized interfaces are used for communication with existing components. A. Interfaces The interfaces among the components in our architecture including GARC and the QoE AS are defined as follows: OpenFlow controller (e.g.NoX): Interface between GARC any OpenFlow capable controller e.g. NOX [8] for exchanging OpenFlow specific messages (JSON via TCP) for transmitting network control and management information, network monitoring data and statistics. OF switch: For controlling flow-to-queue mapping over switch specific DPCTL messages, which in turn enables QoS differentiation between individual flows P-CSCF of the IMS core: Diameter Gx for QoS provisioning in combination with the Diameter Gxx reference point for bearer-binding and event-reportingfunctions. HSS/HLR or user profile database: Diameter extended Sp interface for querying static or dynamic user profile information. AS: Diameter extended Rx interface for signaling application layer QoS requirements from network-aware application towards GARC.

Figure 1 QoE-aware next-generation IPTV architecture

Application layer: the IMS IPTV Client with the QoE engine was prototyped based on the open source IMS Communicator. The QoE engine learns its user in different sprofiles (e.g talk show or action movie etc..). It then predicts the users satisfaction level with the corresponding QoS parameters at the same monitoring time, periodically during the course of an on-going session The Application Server was developed for IPTV value added services based on Sailfin platform. The AS includes QoE/QoS module that collects Opinion Score from client terminals including corresponding QoS parameters (e.g. Packet loss rate, delay, jitter) into the following table:
User
alice bob bob

Content
Action talkshow Action

Delay
0 0 208

Jitter
0 0 207

Bitrate
230006 732177 62977

PLR
0 0 0

MOS
4 5 2

Figure 2 Database of QoS settings and predicted MOS at the AS

A Video server was also developed based on Darwin Streaming Server. The IMS core layer for signaling and session/service control [4] that delivers CSCF servers and a user profile database (HSS). The media layer for transportation of media traffic in unicast, multicast and broadcast. The core transportation network is built with virtualized Openflow switches and its technology. The GARC component is also integrated to the core network. Controller Switch Interface uses the specified OpenFlow Protocol in version 1.1 [2], providing OpenFlow controller interfaces for performing Open Flow routing. Based on the collected database of each user with different service categories, the GARC logic establishes a mapping function between QoE and QoS by using the linear regression (1) method: MoS = Br + Jt + Plr + Where: Coeff , , , and are calculated particularly for each case. Br : bit rate, Jt : jitter, Plr : packet loss rate

Interface OF controller OF switch: Controller Switch Interface using the Open-Network-Foundation (ONF) specified OpenFlow Protocol in version 1.1 [7] providing standard OpenFlow controller interfaces for performing OpenFlow conform routing. Interface IMS client AS: SIP and XML. XML for exchanging collected data of QoE and corresponding QoS spectrum from the client to the AS. B. Call-Flows Figure 3 depicts a SIP based session setup and QoS parameter negotiation between UE and IMS MRF resulting in a multimedia session. In the beginning, the UE initiates a multimedia session using a SIP INVITE indicating the terminal QoS parameter in terms of supported codecs, bit rate, etc. The QoS parameters are transported in the body of the SIP message as Session-Description-Protocol (SDP) including a set of supported QoS parameter for selection. The SIP INVITE signaled to the P-CSCF and is forwarded on to

application server IMS MRF using S-CSCF for application server selection.

over RTP. MOS value is computed using user interaction and MOS prediction. A change in the QoE causes a re-INVITE SIP signaling in behalf of the UE. The QoE module within the AS determines an enhanced QoS level. The new SDP is enforced within the network. V. TESTBED RESULTS

We tested a scenario of four different users streaming multimedia content over UDP. Figure 4 shows how 4 the-sameinitial-QCI-level Service-Data-Flows (SDF) can be separated into 4 different QCI levels with particular QoS levels in the OpenFlow network having minimum guaranteed and maximum bandwidth limitations. The modification happened from sec 20 to sec 80 and reassigned from sec 80 to sec 140.

Figure 4 - Scenario Validation Measurements

Besides, Figure 5 describes how the GARC logic component defined separate QoE-QoS functions for each user with each different content category as generalized in equation (1).
User
alice bob bob

Content
Action talkshow Action

0.003768 0.004324 0.003376

-0.00397 -0.00283 -0.00439

-0.430450 -0.254657 -0.714890

3.03429 2.78656 3.54069

Figure 5 QoE-QoS translation at the GARC Logic

VI.

CONCLUSIONS

Figure 3 QoE/QoS Control Call-Flow Model

The SIP MRF receives the SIP INVITE, pre-acknowledges the INVITE using a 183-session-progress response before answering with the SIP 200 OK finally. The SIP 200 OK contains the negotiated QoS parameter supported by the SIP MRF, which is forwarded to the UE through the IMS. While reaching the P-CSCF, the SDP parameter is transformed into 3GPP Diameter access network specific Re-Auth-Requests (RAR). Each RAR is answered by an Re-Auth-Answer (RAA) indicating the successful or non-successful resource reservation in the network. This procedure is standard conform to IETF Diamater Base Protocol [9]. The novelty in the presented approach is the ability to apply these existing QoS reservation mechanisms in an OpenFlow virtual network. GARC receives the Diameter RAR, extracts traffic flow templates and QCI level and performs network resource reservation in OpenFlow using the new defined OpenFlow north-bound interface Rx#. A RAA is signaled back to the PCSCF indicating the positive or negative resource reservation attempt. After the successful session was established over SIP, media data is transported between the UE and the SIP MRF

We proposed a novel IMS-based IPTV system that enables smart cross-layer QoS control mechanism in the application and network layer, and the IPTV session adaptation based on Quality of Experience of users. The prototype succeeded in showing that end-to-end QoS can be enhanced and TV sessions can be improved to satisfy each individual client REFERENCES
[1] Markus Fiedler, et al, A Generic Quantitative Relationship between Quality of Experience and Quality of Service, IEEE Network Special Issue on Improving QoE for Network Services, 2010. Vol.24, Isue.2. Page(s): 36 41 OpenFlow Project and Protocol, http://www.openflow.org/ Julius Mueller, Thomas Magedanz, Towards a generic application aware network resource control function for Next-Generation-Networks and beyond, ISCIT 2012, Page(s): 877 882, October 2012, Australia Open IMS Core Playground, see http://www.openimscore.org/ Koumaras, H. et al, A QoE-aware IMS infrastrusture for multimedia services, ICUMT 2011, 5-7 October 2011, Budapest, Hungary 3rd Generation Partnership Project; Technical Specification Group Services and System Aspects; IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS); Stage 2 (Release 11), TS 23.228, V11.6.0 (2012-09) http://www.openflow.org/documents/openflow-spec-v1.0.0.pdf N. Gude, et al, Nox: towards an operating system for networks, SIGCOMM Comput. Com. Rev., vol. 38, no. 3, pp. 105110, Jul. 2008. Diameter Base Protocol, RFC 6733, http://tools.ietf.org/html/rfc6733

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