Distributed multimedia information systems: an end-to-end perspective

Authors

Arif Ghafoor

Abstract

Emerging Web-based applications require distributed multimedia information system (DMIS) infrastructures. Examples of such applications abound in the domains of medicine, entertainment, manufacturing, e-commerce, as well as military and critical national infrastructures. Development of DMIS for such applications need a broad range of technological solutions for organizing, storing, and delivering multimedia information in an integrated, secure and timely manner with guaranteed end-to-end (E2E) quality of presentation (QoP). DMIS are viewed as catalysts for new research in many areas, ranging from basic research to applied technology. This view is a result of the fact that no single monolithic end-to-end architecture for DMIS can meet the wide spectrum of characteristics and requirements of various Web-based multimedia applications. One size does not fit all in this medium of communication. Management of integrated end-to-end QoP and ensuring information security in DMIS, when viewed in conjunction with real world constraints and system-wide performance requirements, present formidable research and implementation challenges. These challenges encompass all the sub-system components of a DMIS. The ultimate objective of achieving a comprehensive end-to-end QoP management relies on the performance and allocation of resources of each of the DMIS sub-system components including networks, databases, and end-systems. In this paper, we elaborate on these challenges and present a high level distributed architecture aimed at providing the critical functionality for a DMIS.

Keywords

Multimedia documents, semantic web, resource allocations, QoS management, distributed systems, information security, broadband networking

Date of this Version

2007

Comments

Multimedia Tools and Applications Volume 33, Number 1, 31-56

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