Adaptive Management of Multimedia Networks

The Navy's C4I systems of tomorrow will contain networked multimedia applications to support functions used by decision makers and war fighters. A number of challenging problems must be addressed before such networked multimedia applications can be implemented in a cost-effective fashion. One of these challenges is the delivery of audio and full-motion video over a heterogeneous, enterprise-wide network. Multimedia applications require the network to bound delays encountered by audio and video packets. However, this presents a formidable problem in a heterogeneous network that must support traffic from multiple competing applications. The proposed adaptive network management approach addresses the problem of supporting the requirements of video and audio applications in such networks. The proposed approach exploits the inherent adaptiveness of continuous media applications to dynamically adjust the quality of service (QoS) of multimedia applications in response to changes in available network resources. It uses an innovative technique for controlling the QoS of the applications as well as a novel means for monitoring the performance of the network. This SBIR Phase I effort will establish the feasibility of the proposed adaptive network management approach by developing the architecture of the network management software and assessing its performance.