Proxy Selection for Interactive Video

Transmission of time-critical video traffic over the networks with large end-to-end delays poses two main difficulties: slow adaptation to changing network conditions and inability of timely recovery from lost packets. Previously, we proposed a proxy-based solution that enabled us to cope with these problems. Our Internet experiments with a single proxy system showed that the QoS delivered by interactive video applications could be greatly improved by the Intermediate-Proxy approach. In multi-proxy systems, however, the availability of a large number of proxies throughout the Internet will bring the proxy selection problem to the fore. This is an important problem since the benefits of the intermediate-proxy approach can be best exploited with a proper proxy selection. In this study, our goal is to model the dynamics involved in the networks with proxies, and investigate mathematical and practical proxy selection methods.