• Journal of KIISE:Computer Systems and Theory
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• v.28 no.9
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• pp.442-460
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• 2001

In video-on-demand(VOD) systems it is important to minimize initial latency and memory requirements. The minimization of initial latency enables the system to provide services with short response time, and the minimization of memory requirements enables the system to service more concurrent user requests with the same amount of memory. In VOD systems, since initial latency and memory requirement increase according to the increment of buffer size allocated to user requests, the buffer size allocated to user requests must be minimized. The existing static buffer allocation scheme, however, determines the buffer size based on the assumption that thy system is in fully loaded state. Thus, when the system is in partially loaded state, the scheme allocates user requests unnecessarily large buffers. This paper proposes a dynamics buffer allocation scheme that allocates user requests the minimum buffer size in fully loaded state as well as a partially loaded state. This scheme dynamically determines the buffer size based on the number of user requests in service and the number of user requests arriving while servicing current requests. In addition, through analyses and simulations, this paper validates that the dynamics buffer allocation outperforms the statics buffer allocation in initial latency and the number of concurrent user requests that can be supported. Our simulation results show that, in proportion to the static buffer allocation scheme, the dynamic buffer allocation scheme reduces the average initial latency by 29%~65%, and in a systems having several disks. increases the average number of concurrent user requests by 48%~68%. Our results show that the dynamic buffer allocation scheme significantly improves the performance and reduce the capacity requirements of VOD systems.