Title
Distributed multimedia information systems: an end-to-end perspective
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
Authoritative Citation
Multimedia Tools and Applications Volume 33, Number 1, 31-56