Document caching policies on high-speed distributed networks for personalized multimedia services

Abstract

Following the previously introduced multimedia information caching paradigm in the literature, we present a polynomial time optimal caching strategy that minimizes the total monetary cost of all the service requests by the users requesting a multimedia document to view in a high-speed metropolitan area broadband network (MAN). We consider a scenario in which a large pool of customers from one or more number of remote sites on this network demand a multimedia program situated on a site for viewing at different time instants. This process of distribution of the requested program involves communication costs and caching costs of the program before it is delivered to the users at their desired viewing times. We configure the MANs as a fully-connected topology and show that a single copy of the requested document is sufficient to serve all the user requests in an optimal manner, for the case of high speed networks. Using this strategy, the personal service agents (PSAs) will decide when, where, and for how long the requested programs must be cached to obtain an optimal solution. © 2000 IEEE.