A Survey of Network Requirements to Support Current and Future Data Streams


Sponsor Mostafa Ammar,
ammar@cc
GCATT 219
Area Computer Networks


Problem
File servers send and receive many different types of files and data objects: programs, files with raw data, images, sound and video streams, etc... We may divide these files and data objects into two major groups in terms of their network requirements: ones that have limited requirements, and ones that can exploit any available resource from the network. An example for the latter group would be a file that is sent via the ftp facility: the more network resources we are able to provide, the faster we can transfer the file to it's destination. On the other hand, data streams (e.g., audio, video), have limited requirements. For example, a sound stream that is generated out of a CD, requires a limited bandwidth. The sound was originally sampled and recorded at a rated of around 44[KHz]. Providing more bandwidth in this case is redundant. As the portion of data streams in the total communication over the Internet grows, it is important to know what are the requirements data stream impose over the network.

In this project, you are required to survey network requirements of current data streams, as well as speculate on the possible network requirements of future data streams. Your future speculations may be based on current standards that are in a process of being formulated (e.g., HDTV standards), or on your speculations about the requirements of non-traditional data streams, such as smell and touch streams.

Deliverables
A documnet describing current and future data streams in terms of size, data rates and quality of service.

Evaluation
Based on the quality of the document.