On Decomposition and Deployment of virtualized Media Services

Abstract

For decades, broadcasters have heavily relied on specialized hardware appliances for media transport and processing. However, new architectures, where media transport is realized using IP networking and general-purpose compute hardware is used to run Virtual Media Functions (VMFs), are increasingly being adopted in the broadcast industry. To truly exploit the benefits of these architectures, efficient resource allocation algorithms are needed. Hence, we have proposed an algorithm to optimize a media service's VMF Forwarding Graph (VMF-FG) prior to deployment. To deploy media services, two VMF Placement and Chaining (VMF-PC) algorithms- Next-Fit Placement and Chaining (NFPC) and k-cut Placement and Chaining (k-cutPC) are proposed. The presented evaluation results compare the performance of the two VMF-PC algorithms along with highlighting the improvement in resource allocation as a result of VMF-FG decomposition.