An Architecture for Distributed Content Delivery Network

A minor thesis submitted in partial fulfilment of the requirements for the degree of
Masters of Applied Science (Information Technology)

Jaison Paul Mulerikkal

School of Computer Science and Information Technology
Science, Engineering, and Technology Portfolio,
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
Melbourne, Victoria, Australia
July 17, 2007

Declaration
This thesis contains work that has not been submitted previously, in whole or in part, for any
other academic award and is solely my original research, except where acknowledged.
This work has been carried out since January 2007, under the supervision of Dr.Ibrahim
Khalil.

Jaison Paul Mulerikkal

School of Computer Science and Information Technology
Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology
July 17, 2007

Acknowledgment
I would like to thank Dr. Ibrahim Khalil, for his continuous support and guidance throughout
the course of this minor thesis. It is his constant inspiration and encouragement that helped
me to complete this task, successfully. I specially thank him for his painstaking efforts in
proof reading the drafts of this work.
I also thank Dr Jiankun Hu for his valuable suggestions and contributions towards this project.

ii

Contents
1 Introduction

2 Background

2.1

2.2

2.3

CDN Main Concepts . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.1.1

Surrogate Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.1.2

DNS Lookup and Redirection . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

2.1.3

DNS Load Balancing . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

10

2.1.4

Replication . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

2.1.5

Selection of Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

2.1.6

Cached Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

11

2.1.7

Outsourcing Content . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

2.1.8

Accounting and Billing Mechanism . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

12

Conventional CDN Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

2.2.1

Commercial (Client-Server) Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

13

2.2.2

Academic (Peer-to-Peer) Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

14

2.2.3

Limitations of Existing CDN Architectures . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

15

Distributed Content Delivery Network - An Effective Alternative . . . . . . .

16

3 Architecture - Distributed Content Delivery Network

3.1

DCDN Framework . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

iii

17
17

3.2

3.3

3.1.1

Distribution of Content - The Process . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

19

3.1.2

Content Delivery to a User . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

21

DCDN Design Challenges . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

3.2.1

Security . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

25

3.2.2

Effective Redirection and Load-balancing Algorithm . . . . . . . . . .

26

3.2.3

Billing and SLA (Service Level Agreement) Verification Software . . .

27

Business Model . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

27

3.3.1

Network Marketing (NM)/ Multi Level Marketing (MLM) . . . . . . .

28

3.3.2

Special Scenarios of DCDN Advantage . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

30

4 Performance Analysis and Load Balancing Algorithm

31

4.1

Performance Parameters and Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

31

4.2

Queuing Metrics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

32

4.3

Queuing Theory Modeling for Different Scenarios . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

33

4.4

Load Balancing Algorithm for DCDN Servers . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34

5 Simulations and Results

38

5.1

Goals

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

38

5.2

Assumptions . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

5.3

Overview of Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

39

5.4

Simulation Results . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

5.4.1

Page Response Time . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

41

5.4.2

DCDN Surrogate - CPU Utilization vs. CDN Server - CPU Utilization

43

5.4.3

DCDN Server - CPU Utilization vs. CDN Load Balancer - CPU Uti-

5.5

lization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

Discussion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

iv

6 Conclusion and Future work

6.1

46

Future Work . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

47

A Softwares Used

48

B Abbreviations

49

C Symbols

50

D Simulation Snapshots

51

List of Figures
1.1

CDNs and Web Content Distribution . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

3.1

DCDN Content Distribution Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

18

3.2

DCDN Content Delivery . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

20

3.3

DCDN Basic Transition Diagram . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

22

3.4

DCDN Transition Diagram - Including Contingency Plans . . . . . . . . . . .

23

3.5

Local DCDN Server Zones - Contingency Plan . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

24

3.6

DCDN Transition Diagram - Including Security Solutions . . . . . . . . . . .

26

3.7

Pyramid Scheme . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

28

3.8

MLM Architecture . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

29

4.1

Utilization v/s Total System Delay . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

34

4.2

Utilization v/s Rejection Rate . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

35

5.1

Page Response Time

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

42

5.2

DCDN Surrogate(Server) Utilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

43

5.3

DCDN Server (Load Balancer) Utilization . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

44

D.1 Simulation Snapshot - CDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

52

D.2 Simulation Snapshot - DCDN . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

53

D.3 Application Configuration . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

54

D.4 Profile Configuration

54

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .
vi

List of Tables
1.1

Commercial Content Delivery Networks . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

1.2

Academic Content Delivery Networks

. . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

5.1

Simulation Setup . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .

40

Abstract
Commercial Content Delivery Networks create their own network of servers around the globe
to effectively deliver Web content to the end-users. The peering of Content Delivery Networks
(CDN) increase the efficiency of commercial CDNs. But still the high rental rates resulting
from huge infrastructure cost make it inaccessible to medium and low profile clients . Academic models of peer-to-peer CDNs aim to reduce the financial cost of content distribution
by forming volunteer group of servers around the globe. But their efficiency is at the mercy
of the volunteer peers whose commitment is not ensured in their design. We propose a new
architecture that will make use of the existing resources of common Internet users in terms
of storage space, bandwidth and Internet connectivity to create a Distributed Content Delivery Network (DCDN). The profit pool generated by the infrastructure savings will be shared
among the participating nodes (DCDN surrogates) which will function as an incentive for
them to support DCDN. Since the system uses the limited computing resources of common
Internet users, we also propose a suitable load balancing (LB) algorithm so that DCDN surrogates are not burdened with heavy load and requests are fairly assigned to them. Simulations
have been carried out and the results show that the proposed architecture (with LB) can offer
same or even better performance as that of commercial CDN.

Chapter 1

Introduction
The growth of the World Wide Web and new modes of Web services have triggered an
exponential increase in Web content and Internet traffic [Molina et al., 2004; Vakali and
Pallis, 2003; Presti et al., 2005]. The Web content consists of static content (e.g. Static
HTML pages, images, documents, software patches), streaming media (e.g. audio, real time
video) and varying content services (e.g. directory service, e-commerce service, file transfer
service) [R. Buyya and Tari, 2001]. As the Web content and the Internet traffic increases,
individual Web servers find it difficult to cater to the needs of end-users. In order to store and
serve huge quantities of Web content, Web server farms - a cluster of Web servers functioning
as a single unit - are introduced [Burns et al., 2001].
Even those Web server farms find it difficult to deal with flash crowds - large number of simultaneous requests for a popular content - that are frequently experienced in Web traffic [Pan
et al., 2004]. Moreover, those server farms are geographically distant from the end-users in
most of the cases. The non-proximity of the Web servers to the end-users badly affect the
response time of the Web requests, resulting in undesirable delays [Pan et al., 2004].
Replication of same Web content around the globe in a net of Web servers is a solution to
the above issue. However, it is not financially viable for individual content providers to set
up their own server networks. An answer to this challenge is the concept of Content Delivery
Network (CDN) that was initiated in 1998 [Douglis and Kaashoek, 2001; Vakali and Pallis,
2003].
The basic idea is to improve the performance and scalability of content retrieval by geographically distributing a network of Web servers around the globe and allowing several content
providers to host their content in those servers. . It allows a number of content providers to

Public
Internet

ISP

Web Server
(Content Provider)

Internet
Backbone
CDN Node

ISP

CDN Node

CDN Node

ISP

Figure 1.1: CDNs and Web Content Distribution

upload their Web content into the same network of Web servers (also called, CDN servers)
and thereby to reduce the cost of content replication and distribution.
In a typical CDN environment(Figure 1.1), the replicated Web server clusters are located at
the edge of the network to which the end-users are connected. The end-users interact with
the CDN specifying the content-service request through cell phone, PDA, laptop, desktop etc.
The Web content based on user requests are fetched from the origin server and a user is served
with the content from the nearby replicated Web server. Thus the users end up communicating
with a replicated CDN server close to them and retrieve files from that server. From the very
inception of the concept, CDN has gone through dramatic evolution. There are a number
of CDNs available around the globe Douglis and Kaashoek [2001]; Vakali and Pallis [2003];
Pathan [2007] and are collectively called as Conventional CDN architectures in this minor
thesis. They can be mainly classified into two:
1. Commercial CDNs
2. Academic CDNs
The Commercial networks are owned by corporate companies and generally follow centralized client-server architecture. Some of them have more than 20,000 servers around the globe
4

Name

Description

Akamai

Founded in 1998 at Massachusetts, USA, Akamai is

considered to be the pioneer in CDN business. It has
reported a net income of 283.115 million USD in 2005.

Mirror Image Web, Inc

Founded in 1999 at Massachusetts, USA. Besides content distribution, streaming and content access services are provided.

Local Mirror

It is a U.S.-based privately held corporation that offers Content Delivery Network service incorporated in
2005. It is a provider for static content, audio, video
streaming and distribution.

Limelight Networks

Founded in 2001 in Tempe, Arizona, USA Limelight

Network provides a network for bandwidth-intensive
rich media applications over Web.

Table 1.1: Commercial Content Delivery Networks

to support their network. A list of prominent commercial CDN providers are given in Table 1.1 [Pathan, 2007].
The academic CDNs are non-profitable in nature and generally follow peer-to-peer architecture. These peer-to-peer Content Delivery Network models allow content providers to
organize themselves together and to operate within their own hosting platforms. Some of the
important academic CDN providers are given in Table 1.2 [Pathan, 2007].
Conventional CDN architectures - Commercial CDN and Academic CDN - have got their own
advantages. But their marjor pitfalls are:
High rental rates of commercial CDN services resulting from huge infrastructural cost.
Efficiency of academic CDNs is at the mercy of the volunteer peers whose commitment
is not ensured in their design.
The huge financial cost involved in setting up a commercial CDN compels the commercial
CDN providers to charge high remuneration for their service from their clients (the content
providers). Usually this cost is so high that only large firms can afford it. On the other
hand, the academic CDNs do not provide a built-in network of independent servers around
5

Name

Description

Coral

It is a free peer-to-peer CDN designed to mirror Web content. It uses

architecture very similar to a distributed Web proxy. To access a Website
through the Coral cache, we need to simply add .nyud.net:8080 to the
hostname in the sites URL.

Globule

It is an open-source CDN developed at Vrije University in Amsterdam.

It is introduced as a third party module for Apache HTTP server.

FCAN

Flash Crowd Alleviation Network is an adaptive CDN that dynamically

optimises between peer-to-peer and client-server architectures to alleviate flash crowds.
Table 1.2: Academic Content Delivery Networks

the globe. That means, the risk and responsibility of running content distribution network
ultimately goes back to the content providers themselves. The content providers, who are
generally not interested in taking such big risks and responsibility, do not find academic CDNs
as attractive alternatives to commercial CDNs.

Objectives
The above brief discussion (which will be further explained in 2.3.1) suggests that there is
a need for more reliable and scalable CDN architecture without fresh infra-structural investment. A unique CDN architecture is required to address these issues.
A lot of work has been done in this area aimed at these ends. An academic CDN, Globule, which is envisaged as Collaborative Content Delivery Network (CCDN) [Pierre and van
Steen, 2006a] aims to provide performance and availability through Web servers that cooperate across a wide area network. Coppens et al. [2006] proposes the idea of a self-organizing
Adaptive Content Distribution Network (ACDN), where they introduce a less centralized
replica placement algorithm - (COCOA - Cooperative Cost Optimization Algorithm) which
will push the content more to the clients. Though most of these works seem to be theoretically
sound, they never challenged the efficiency and reliability of commercial client-server architecture for they were purely peer-to-peer architecture which will be effective only at the mercy
of participating peers, whose performance is not under the control of suggested architecture.
A successful alternative to Commercial CDNs with comparable performance and reliability
can be assured only by ensuring proportionate incentives to the participating nodes which
will function as a driving force for those peers to stay alive with minimum service rates.
6

Involving Web users with comparatively high bandwidth of Internet connection (broadband
or higher) to form a Distributed Content Delivery Network (DCDN) for proportionate remuneration evoke curiosity and challenges. Clusters of DCDN surrogates (participating Web
users) will be replacing the conventional CDN servers in this architecture pushing the content
very much near to the end-users.
The objectives of this thesis can be summed up as follows:
Suggest a practical and viable architecture for DCDN and discuss its possible challenges.
Suggest a load balancing algorithm for DCDN servers based on queuing theory analysis
of DCDN surrogate.
Compare the performance of DCDN architecture against commercial CDN architecture
using simulation techniques.

Contribution
This work aims to propose a new architecture for CDN that will make use of the limited but
readily available resources of common Internet users. To achieve this objective, the thesis
makes the following contributions.
Suggests a unique DCDN architecture and proposes a workable business model to successfully implement it in the real-time scenario.
Suggests an appropriate load balancing algorithm for DCDN Local servers by analyzing
the performance of DCDN surrogate in terms of average system delay and rejection
rate.
Discusses the performance of DCDN architecture in comparison with commercial CDN
using simulation results.

Organization
The origin of CDN and the need and scope of DCDN are given in Chapter 1. The main
concepts and the evolution of conventional CDN architectures in the light of previous work
are discussed in Chapter 2. Chapter 3 discusses the proposed DCDN architecture in detail. It
will be followed by an analysis of major performance parameters of DCDN surrogates - average
system delay and rejection rate - in Chapter 4. On the light of those results, a probable load
7

balancing algorithm for DCDN servers is suggested in the same chapter. Simulations and its
results to compare the DCDN architecture against commercial CDN architecture constitute
Chapter 5. Finally the thesis is concluded with a discussion about future work.

Chapter 2

Background
In this chapter we discuss the different entities that constitute the technical backbone of a
Content Delivery Network (CDN) in the light of previous works. Further the conventional
architectures of CDN - commercial (client-server) and academic (peer-to-peer) - are evaluated
and the need of a new architecture is discussed.

2.1
2.1.1

CDN Main Concepts

Surrogate Servers

These are the collection of (non-origin) servers that attempt to offload work from origin servers
by delivering content on their behalf. Surrogate Servers are to be placed all around the globe,
according to various needs and business considerations. Since location of surrogate servers is
closely related to the content delivery process, it puts extra emphasis on the issue of choosing
the best location for each surrogate. Many approaches (e.g: theoretical, heuristic) have been
developed to model the surrogate server placement problem [Telematica Institute, 2007].

2.1.2

DNS Lookup and Redirection

The first step taken by a client to retrieve the content for a URL from Web is to resolve
the server name portion of the URL to the IP address of a machine containing the URL
content. The client does this resolution with a Domain Name System (DNS) lookup. The
resolution causes a DNS request to be sent to a local DNS server. If the local DNS server
does not have the address mapping already in its cache, the local DNS server sends a query
9

to the authoritative DNS server for the given server name. Servers in a CDN are located at
different locations in the Web. A primary issue for a CDN is how to direct client requests
for an object served by the CDN to a particular server within the network. DNS redirection
and URL rewriting are two of the commonly used techniques for directing client requests to
a particular server in a distributed network of content servers [Krishnamurthy et al., 2001;
Vakali and Pallis, 2003].
For the DNS redirection technique, the authoritative DNS name server is controlled by the
CDN. The technique is termed DNS redirection because when this authoritative DNS server
receives the DNS request from the client the DNS server redirects the request by resolving
the CDN server name to the IP address of one content server. This resolution is done based
on factors such as the availability of resources and network conditions [Molina et al., 2004].

2.1.3

DNS Load Balancing

In order to achieve Web server scalability, the DNS redirection has to be distributed evenly
among the surrogate servers in a CDN. When multiple Web servers - the surrogate servers are present in the server group of CDN, these servers appear as one Web server to the Web
client. So, the Web traffic needs to be evenly distributed among these servers. Such a load
distribution among these servers is known as load balancing. The load balancing mechanism
used for spreading Web requests is known as IP Spraying [Dilley et al., 2002]. The equipment
used for IP spraying is also called the load dispatcher or the load balancer. In this case, the
IP sprayer intercepts each Web request, and redirects them to a server in the server cluster
of CDN. Depending on the type of sprayer involved, the architecture can provide scalability,
load balancing and fail over requirements [Dilley et al., 2002].
For example, Akamais DNS-based load balancing system continuously monitors the state
of services and their servers and networks. To monitor the entire systems health end-toend, Akamai uses agents that simulate end-user behaviour by downloading Web objects and
measuring their failure rates and download times [aka, 2007]. Akamai uses this information
to monitor overall system performance and to automatically detect and suspend problematic
data centres or servers. Each of the content servers frequently reports its load to a monitoring
application, which aggregates and publishes load reports to the local DNS server. That DNS
server then determines which IP addresses to return when resolving DNS names. If a certain
server load exceeds a pre-defined threshold, the DNS server simultaneously assigns some of the
servers allocated content to additional servers. If the servers load exceeds another threshold,
the servers IP address is no longer available to clients. The server can thus shed a fraction of

10

its load when it experiences moderate to high load. The monitoring system in Akamai also
transmits data centre load to the top-level DNS resolver to direct traffic away from overloaded
data centres. In addition to load balancing, Akamais monitoring system provides centralized
reporting on content service for each customer and content server. This information is useful
for network operational and diagnostic purposes [Wikipedia, 2007].

2.1.4

Replication

Commercial CDNs (e.g. Akamai) replicate content across the globe for large organizations
like CNN or Apple, that needs to deliver large volumes of data in a timely manner.
Using replication techniques, one or more copies of a single Web content (e.g: streaming media
asset) can be maintained on one or more surrogate servers. Context-aware heuristics are
proposed by Thomas Buchholz and Linnhoff-Popien [2005] for content replication to increase
the monetary value of replicated content where a replicas profit is dependent on the number
of requests it receives from time interval. The clients discover an optimal replica origin server
for clients to communicate with. Here, optimality is a policy based decision which is based
upon proximity or other criteria such as load [Telematica Institute, 2007].

2.1.5

Selection of Content

The choice of content to be delivered to the end-users is important for content selection.
Content can be delivered to the customers in full or in partial. In full-site content delivery
the surrogate servers perform entire replication in order to deliver the total content site to
the end-users. In contrast, partial content delivery provides only embedded objects such as
Web page images from the corresponding CDN.

2.1.6

Cached Delivery

A surrogate server may be equipped with a streaming media cache. This enables on-demand
content to be dynamically replicated locally, perhaps in an encrypted format. The surrogate
may attempt to store all cacheable media files upon first request. When a surrogate receives
a client request for on-demand media, it determines whether the content is cacheable. Then
it checks to see whether the requested media already resides in its local cache. If the media
is not already in the cache, the surrogate acquires the media file from the source server and
simultaneously delivers it to the requesting client. Subsequent requests for the same media

11

clip can be served without repeatedly pulling the clip across the network from the source
server [Telematica Institute, 2007].

2.1.7

Outsourcing Content

Given a set of properly placed surrogate servers in a CDN infrastructure and a chosen content
for delivery, it is crucial to decide which content outsourcing practice is to follow. There are
basically three content outsourcing schemes and they are enumerated below.
1. Cooperative push-based approach: In this appraoch, content is pushed to the surrogate
servers from the origin and each request is directed to the closest surrogate server or
otherwise the request is directed to the origin server [Zhiyong Xu and Bhuyan, 2006].
2. Non-cooperative pull-based approach:, Here, client requests are directed (DNS redirection) to their closest surrogate servers. If there is a cache miss, surrogate servers pull
content from the origin server [Dilley et al., 2002].
3. Cooprative pull-based approach: It differs from the non-cooperative approach in the
sense that surrogate servers cooperates each other to get the requested content in case
of cache miss. Using a distributed index, the surrogate servers find nearby copies of
requested content and store in the cache [Zhiyong Xu and Bhuyan, 2006].

2.1.8

Accounting and Billing Mechanism

CDN providers charge their customers according to the content delivered by their surrogate
servers to the clients. There are technical and business challenges in pricing CDN services.
The average cost of charging of CDN services is quite high. The most influencing factors affecting the price of CDN services include: bandwidth cost, variation of traffic distribution, size
of content replicated over surrogate servers, number of surrogate servers, reliability and stability of the whole system and security issues of outsourcing content delivery [Krishnamurthy
et al., 2001]. CDNs support an accounting mechanism that collects and tracks information
related to request routing, distribution and delivery. This mechanism gathers information in
real time and collects it in for each CDN component. This information can be used in CDNs
for accounting, billing and maintaining purposes.

12

2.2

Conventional CDN Architectures

2.2.1

Commercial (Client-Server) Architecture

The classical example is of Akamai.

Akamai offers content delivery services to content

providers by offering worldwide distributed platform to host their content. It is done by

installing a worldwide network of more than twenty thousand Akamai Surrogate Servers [Dilley et al., 2002].
Akamai represents the centralized approach of CDN where the customers (the content providers)
hire their share of space in Akamai servers to support the distribution and easy download of
their Web content (Web pages or dynamic streaming content). A typical approach by which
Akamai provides this service is as follows:
1. The clients browser requests the default Web page at the Content Providers site. The
site returns the Web page index.html.
2. The HTML code contains link to some content (eg: images) hosted on the Akamai
owned server.
3. As the Web browser parses the HTML code, it pull the content from Akamai server [Wikipedia,
2007].
Akamai uses a simple tool called Free Flow Launcher for its customers that they use to
Akamaize their pages [Mahajan, 2004]. The users will specify what content they want to be
served through Akamai and the tool will go ahead and Akamaize the URLs. This way the
customers still have complete control of what gets served through Akamai and what they still
are in charge of. Now the customer is responsible only for the content he chooses to server
himself and first few hits of other content till the Akamai caches warm up [Reitz, 2000].

Peering of Commercial CDNs

The commercial CDNs are owned and operated by individual companies. Although there are
many commercial CDN providers, they do not cooperate in delivering content to end-users in
a scalable manner. In addition, content providers are typically subscribed to one of the CDN
providers and are unable to utilize services of multiple CDN providers at the same time. Such
a closed, non-cooperative model results in creation of islands of CDNs.

13

To compromise expense and to ensure better service to the clients, CDN providers need to
partner together so that each can supply and receive services in a cooperative and collaborative
manner that one CDN cannot provide to content providers otherwise. The objective of a CDN
is to satisfy its customers with competitive services. If a particular CDN provider is unable
to provide quality service to the end-user requests, it may result in Service Level Agreement
(SLA) violation and adverse business impact. In such scenarios, one CDN provider partner
with other CDN provider(s), which has caching servers located near to the end-user and serve
the users request, meeting the Quality of Service (QoS) requirements [Lazar and Terrill, 2001].
This is called peering of CDNs.
A Virtual Organization (VO) model for forming Content and Service Delivery Networks
(CSDN) and a policy framework within the VO model is suggested for the peering of CDNs
by R. Buyya and Tari [2001]. Delivery of content in such an environment will meet QoS
requirements of end-users according to the negotiated SLA.

2.2.2

Academic (Peer-to-Peer) Architecture

Distributed computer architectures labelled peer-to-peer are designed for the sharing of computer resources (content, storage, CPU cycles) by direct exchange, rather than requiring the
intermediation or support of a centralized server or authority. Peer-to-peer architectures are
characterized by their ability to adapt to failures and accommodate transient populations of
nodes while maintaining acceptable connectivity and performance [Androutsellis-Theotokis
and Spinellis, 2004].
The same technique has been proposed and adopted for creating reliable CDN for the propagation of Web content. A peer-to-peer (P2P) CDN is a system in which the users get together
to forward contents so that the load at a server is reduced.
In its most basic form, a peer-to-peer content distribution system creates a distributed storage
medium that allows for the publishing, searching, and retrieval of files by members of its
network. So, instead of delegating content delivery to an external company (like Akamai),
content providers can organize together to trade their (relatively cheap) local resources against
(valuable) remote resources.
A classical example would be the academic peer-to-peer CDN - Globule, developed by Vrije
University in Amsterdam. It is implemented as a third-party module for the Apache HTTP
server that allows any given server to replicate its documents to other Globule servers. This
improves the sites performance; maintain the site available to its clients even if some servers

14

are down, and to a certain extent help to resist flash-crowds [Pierre and van Steen, 2003].
A user participating in the Globule network is offered a distributed set of servers in which
his/her Web content can be replicated. Globule is designed in the form of an add-on module
for the Apache Web server. To replicate their content, content providers only need to compile an extra module into their Apache server and edit a simple configuration file. Globule
automatically replicates the sites content and redirects clients to a nearby replica. Servers
also monitor each others availability, so that client requests are not redirected to a failing
replica [Halderen and Pierre, 2006; Guillaume Pierre, 2006; Pierre and van Steen, 2006b].
S. Sivasubramanian, B Halderen and G. Pierre rightly observe that a peer-to-peer CDN
aims to allow Web content providers to together and operate their own worldwide hosting
platform S. Sivasubramanian and Pierre [2004] .

2.2.3

Limitations of Existing CDN Architectures

Despite the many advantages of commercial CDNs, they suffer from some major limitations.
Commercial CDN providers compete each other and forced to set up costly infrastructure
around the globe. Since they want to meet the QoS standards agreed with the clients they
are constantly in a process of installing and updating new infrastructure. This process gives
rise to the following issues:
1. Network cost : Increase in total network cost in terms of new set of servers and corresponding increase in network traffic.
2. Economic cost: Increase in cost per service rate for the distribution of Web content,
resulting from increase in initial investment and running cost of each commercial CDN.
3. Social cost: Content distribution is been centralized to a couple of CDN providers and
the possible issues of monopolization of revenue in this area.
The huge financial cost involved in setting up a commercial CDN compels the commercial
CDN providers to charge high remuneration from their clients (the content providers). Usually
this cost is so high that only large firms can afford it. As a result, Web content providers
of medium and small sizes are not in a position to rent the services of commercial CDN
providers.
Moreover, the revenue from content distribution is monopolized. Only large CDN providers
with huge infrastructure around the world are destined to amass revenue from this big busi15

ness. At the same time, the resources in terms of processing power, storage capacity and the
network availability of large number of common Internet users are ignored who would support
a content delivery network for proportionate remunerations.
On the other hand, the academic CDNs are non-profitable initiatives in a peer-to-peer fashion.
But they serve only the content providers who own their own network of servers around the
globe. Or they have to become a part of a voluntary net of servers. However, the academic
CDNs do not provide a built-in network of independent servers around the globe. That means,
the risk and responsibility of running content distribution network ultimately goes back to
the content providers themselves. The content providers, who are generally not interested in
taking such big risks and responsibility, do not find academic CDNs as attractive alternatives.

2.3

Distributed Content Delivery Network - An Effective Alternative

The above discussion proves that there is a need for much reliable, responsible and scalable
CDN architecture, which can make use of the resources of a large number of general Web
users. A unique architecture of Distributed Content Delivery Network (DCDN) is proposed
in this thesis to meet these ends.
DCDN aims at involving general Web users with comparatively high bandwidth of Web
connection (broadband or higher) to form a highly distributed content delivery network.
Those who become the part of DCDN network are called DCDN surrogates. A cluster of
those DCDN surrogates that are distributed very much to the local levels around the globe,
will replace the conventional CDN server pushing the content very much near to the endusers. Since the content is pushed very much into the local levels, the efficiency of the content
retrieval in terms of response time is expected to increase considerably. It will also reduce
network traffic, since clients can access the content from locally placed surrogates. A local
DCDN server, which is mainly a redirector and load balancer, is designed to redirect the
client requests to the appropriate DCDN surrogate servers.
Since DCDN is aimed at using the available storage space and Web connectivity of existing
Web users, it will not demand the installation of fresh new infrastructure. This approach is
supposed to reduce the economic cost, considerably. This acquired new value (profit pool)
could be shared between the DCDN surrogates through proper accounting and billing mechanism and through highly attractive business models. It will serve as an incentive for the
DCDN surrogates to share their resources to support DCDN network.
16

Chapter 3

Architecture - Distributed Content

Delivery Network
In order to provide a highly distributed network of DCDN surrogates a basic structure of
commercial client-server CDN is adopted with novel peer to peer concepts. Therefore the
DCDN architecture will be a hybrid architecture which integrates some of the major features
of conventional client-server CDN and an academic peer-to-peer CDN.
A single surrogate server in the conventional client-server CDN model is replaced with lightweight
DCDN servers (which are basically redirectors) and a number of DCDN surrogates associated with it. However, the content is distributed among the DCDN surrogate servers in a
peer-to-peer fashion and retrieved at a client request with the help of DCDN Local servers.

3.1

DCDN Framework

A collection of Local DCDN Servers and innumerable DCDN Surrogates are networked together to deliver requested Web content to the clients. The main elements of DCDN architecture Content providers, DCDN servers and DCDN surrogates are arranged in a hierarchical
order as depicted in Figure 3.1
Content Provider : It is that entity that request to distribute its Web content through DCDN.
DCDN Administrators: Rather than a technical entity, it is a managerial/business entity. The
entire DCDN network is managed, supported and run by a team of administrators. They do
it by controlling and franchising the Master DCDN servers.

17

Content
Provider

Master
DCDN
Server

Local

Local

Local

DCDN

DCDN

DCDN

Server

Server

Server

DCDN

DCDN

Surrogate

Surrogate

DCDN

DCDN

Surrogate

Surrogate

DCDN

DCDN

Surrogate

Surrogate

DCDN
Surrogate

Figure 3.1: DCDN Content Distribution Architecture

DCDN Servers: DCDN servers are basically redirectors that will only have the knowledge
about the location of the content. They do not store any content as such. It may function as
a buffer system, which help to push the content provided by the content providers to DCDN
surrogates. They monitor, keep log of and regulate the content flow from providers to the
surrogates.
In the proposed architecture, DCDN servers are of two types: Master and Local.
1. DCDN Master Servers: Master DCDN servers are the first point of contact of a content
provider. A global network of Master DCDN servers are set up in such a way that
every network region will have at least one Master DCDN server. Network region can
be geographical regions like, the Americas, Europe, Asia and Asia Pacific, and Africa
or network regions identified on the basis of a number of other criteria like, network
traffic and network volume. Content providers deal with administrators through Master
DCDN servers and reach terms and conditions with DCDN administrators for the service
provided by DCDN. They monitor, regulate and control the content flow into DCDN
servers and surrogates.

18

2. DCDN Local Servers: They are placed very near to the end-users (virtually they reside
among the end-users). A number of Local servers can come under the service of a single
Master server. They have got two major functions.
Firstly, they decide where to place the content (among the surrogates) and keep log
of it. So, Local DCDN servers will have more local and specific knowledge about a
particular Web content. Secondly, they find out and return the IP address of the best
available surrogate a client on request for a particular content under the care of DCDN.
In doing so, they also function as a load balancer that will protect the surrogates in the
network from being overloaded.
These Local DCDN servers are networked together to form a globally distributed massive DCDN architecture.
The distinction between Master and Local servers refer only to the role a given server plays
within DCDN. The same server can act both as a Master as well as a Local server, if it is
assigned to do so.
DCDN Surrogates: As explained before, DCDN surrogates are the large number of Web users
who offers resources in terms of storage capacity, bandwidth and processing power to store
and make available DCDN Web content. A requested client Web content is ultimately fetched
from DCDN surrogates.
DCDN Client: The client refers to an end user, who makes a request for a particular Web
content using a Web browser. The assumption is that the client uses a standard Web browser,
without the use of any special component such as plugins or daemons.

3.1.1

Distribution of Content - The Process

The aim is the place the replica of the content as close as possible to the clients. In this
process, firstly, the content providers approach DCDN administrators. Once the Service Level
Agreement is reached, content providers can upload their content to DCDN net. This can be
done either through the Master DCDN servers or through the Local DCDN servers assigned
by the Master DCDN servers. If they are uploading the content through the Master servers,
they will push it to the Local servers. The Local servers push replicas to the surrogates
in their own region and keep a track of these records. The Master servers will have more
universal knowledge about it (Like, what are the network areas in which a particular content
is distributed) and the Local servers will have more local knowledge of the location of the
content (That is, which are the surrogates that actually holding a particular content).
19

Content
Provider

Master
DCDN
Server

Local
DCDN
Server

DNS
Server

DCDN

DCDN

DCDN

Surrogate

Suggogate

Surrogate

5
2

Client

Figure 3.2: DCDN Content Delivery

On request from a Local server, a surrogate may share the replicas with other surrogates in a
peer-to-peer fashion. This will offload the Local severs from additional workload. The process
will make sure that the Local server still has the knowledge about the replicated content in
the new surrogate/s.
However, the content providers need not choose to distribute their content in a true global
manner. If they want DCDN to support only for some region(s), they can request for regional
support too. In that case, the administrators (with the help of Master servers) choose only
those Local DCDN servers, which are set by the parameters given in the QoS (Quality of
Service) agreement between the content provider and DCDN administration. (For example,
if the content is to be distributed in the Asia and Asia Pacific region, it is sent to the Local
DCDN servers at those regions only).
In order to keep sync with the updates and modifications, or in the event of termination of
service to a specific content provider, Master DCDN through the Local DCDN servers request
the DCDN surrogates to update/delete the content.
DCDN does not expect individual surrogates to host a huge volume of content, for they are

20

only general Web users with low storage capacity. Moreover, they may not be connected
to the Web for all the time but makes themselves online for a considerable period of time,
everyday. DCDN relay on the magnitude of storage space and bandwidth expected from the
innumerably large number of surrogates participating in the DCDN net and their absolute
proximity to the clients.

Partial Replication
Because of the unlikelihood of being online at the time of request of a specific content in
a specific surrogate, the same content is replicated in large number of surrogates. It not
suggested that the whole content of a Website should be stored in an individual surrogate.
Partial replication of a Website is allowed because the storage space of surrogates are expected
not to be very big. In case of partial replication, the knowledge about the remaining content
is kept in the respective surrogate to facilitate HTTP redirection in case of query for the rest
of the content. The content is updated, deleted or added dynamically in a regular manner,
in sync with the Local server updates.
The Local DCDN server assesses the demand for a particular content in a particular locality. Local DCDN server increases or decreases the number of replications within its locality
according to this assessment. That is, if there is higher demand for a particular content in a
particular locality, the number of replicas in that locality is increased or vice versa. This will
allow efficient content delivery service with optimum use of resources.

3.1.2

Content Delivery to a User

The DCDN Local server, which is envisaged as a redirector, will follow the DNS protocol. It
will take care of the queries related to the Websites under the care of DCDN. This information
is shared with other DNS servers too. So, when there is a request for a Website under the
care of DCDN, the DNS redirectors will redirect it to the nearest available Local DCDN
server. The DCDN Local server searches the log of active surrogates holding those files using
a suitable technique (Eg. Distributed Hash Table (DHT) algorithm). It will then make a
decision based on the other relevant parameters (availability of full or partial replica content,
bandwidth, physical/online nearness, etc) and will return the IP addresses of the best suitable
surrogate to the client.
Now the client fetches the content from the respective surrogate. The participating surrogates
will have a client daemon program running on their machines, which will handle the requests
21

DNS
Server

Client

DCDN
Surrogate

Local
Server

Master
Server

Content
Provider

Figure 3.3: DCDN Basic Transition Diagram

from the clients and the parent DCDN server. If the surrogate is having only a partial content
of the Website under request, it has to get the rest from other surrogates. The surrogate may
use HTTP redirection to fetch the content from other surrogates.
Diagrammatical representation of the above process is given in Figure 3.2 and the following
interactions between different entities of DCDN are identified.
1. Local DCDN Server - DNS Server Interaction: The Local DCDN server updates the
DNS server with the list of content providers under DCDN care and request DNS server
to map corresponding URL requests to the IP address of the Local DCDN server. DNS
Server queries the Local DCDN server from time to time to update its library.
2. Client - DNS Server Interaction: Client requests for a particular content (Website)
under DCDN care. The DNS server directs the request to the Local DCDN server,
using DNS protocol.
3. Client - Local DCDN Server Interaction: Local DCDN server finds out the best possible surrogate to cater to the request of the client and returns the IP address of that
particular surrogate.
4. Local DCDN Server - Surrogate Interaction: There is a constant interaction going be22

Client

DNS
Server

DCDN
Surrogate

Local
Server

Master
Server

Content
Provider

Figure 3.4: DCDN Transition Diagram - Including Contingency Plans

tween the Local server and the surrogates. The content from the content providers are
stored in the surrogates through the Local DCDN servers. The surrogates inform their
availability and non-availability to the Local server as and when they become online or
offline in terms of connectivity. Local servers keep a track of it. Local DCDN servers
direct the surrogates to add, delete, update or modify the content according to the
decisions made from time to time.
5. DCDN Surrogate - Client Interaction: Once the Local DCDN server returns the IP
address of the most suitable surrogate, the client contacts that surrogate to fetch the
requested content. On request from the client, surrogate delivers the content to the
client.
The transition diagram (Figure 3.3) clubs the major two flows of interactions in DCDN,
namely, content distribution and the content delivery. The sequence of interactions are already
discussed in 3.1.1 and 3.1.2.

23

zone 2

zone 1

to the wider
dcdn net

Figure 3.5: Local DCDN Server Zones - Contingency Plan

Contigency Plans
The special design of DCDN suggests the possibility of a number of unavailable surrogates
at any instance. So, it becomes a high priority to assess the availability of surrogates at
every moment. Asking the surrogates to notify the Local server as and when they become
online and offline, DCDN achieve this end. At the same time the Local servers issue ping
commands at regular intervals to make sure the availability of surrogates, if at all they fail
without notifying the Local server. So, the sequence diagram is modified as in Figure 3.4
Another scenario is, when specific Web content is not available within a local DCDN Network.
In order to cope up with this scenario, each DCDN local surrogate will be classifying the
nearby DCDN Local servers into zones in the representative order of network proximity
(Figure 3.5). That is, the nearby Local DCDN servers with least cost accessibility will fall in
zone 1, and so on. When a specific content is not found in a Local DCDN net, the DCDN
server will first search its availability in the nearby zone 1 DCDN servers. If its found, the
request is redirected to the specific Local DCDN server. If its not found in the lower zones
the search is extended to the higher zones, till the specific content is found.

24

3.2

DCDN Design Challenges

In spite of all its advantages, DCDN architecture arouses its own unique set of challenges.
The major challenges would be:
Security
Efficient algorithm for the effective load balancing and DNS redirection.
Development of efficient software for quantifying the service of DCDN servers and peers.

3.2.1

Security

The security requirements for a DCDN service environment will be driven by the general
security issues such as:
1. Authentication of a content provider (who is recognized by the administrators to use the
service of DCDN) while uploading its content to DCDN through Master/Local servers.
2. Authentication of Master and Local DCDN server when they contact each other (for
sharing/updating content information and so on).
3. Authentication of Local Servers by the surrogates to authenticate pushed content.
In addition to the above issues, maintaining integrity of the content provided by the content
provider throughout the DCDN surrogate replicas become a crucial criteria in the business
success of DCDN. This is because, the large number of surrogates suggest possible vulnerability of the content being manipulated by vicious surrogates or hackers. On the other hand,
content providers will be keen to see that their original content is not tampered within the
DCDN network.
The DCDN daemon running on the surrogates are supposed to ensure security of the content
stored in it. The DCDN surrogate daemon authenticates the injected content from the Local
DCDN server and make sure that they receive original replicas. Different security measures
can be employed to block any attack from the hackers or even from surrogate owner itself
to access of tamper the content within the DCDN daemon. One of the solutions is to make
sure that we track down the anomalies when the content is tampered and delivered to the
end-users. If that can be identified, the respective surrogate can be put on alert, corrected or
even eliminated from DCDN.
25

Client

DNS
Server

DCDN
Surrogate

Local
Server

Master
Server

Content
Provider

Figure 3.6: DCDN Transition Diagram - Including Security Solutions

This can be achieved by stamping all content injected to the surrogate with a digital stamp
like md5 or the like. The Local server will keep a record of these digital stamps. On each
delivery of content, the surrogate daemon shall calculate the digital stamp of the delivered
content and send it back to the Local server. The Local server compares it with its database
and makes sure that there is no anomaly. If there an anomaly is found, content manipulation
is identified and the Local server takes appropriate action. Verification of digital stamp for
each and every transaction can create a huge volume of traffic between surrogates and the
Local server. In order to moderate this traffic, this security measure can be done in some
random basis.
The final transition diagram incorporating the contingency and security issues is shown in
Figure 3.6. Furhter discussions about the security of DCDN architecture are out of the scope
of this minor thesis.

3.2.2

Effective Redirection and Load-balancing Algorithm

The key to the success of DCDN would rely on the success of an effective redirection algorithm.
The DCDN will be having multiple replications of the same content within a local DCDN
set up to ensure scalability of the system. This replication may exponentially increase as

26

the number of local DCDN networks increase throughout the globe. A combination of NDS
HTTP address redirection system as mentioned in 3.1.2 has to be a developed as a possible
solution in this regard.
The DCDN server has to distribute the load within a local system. It should also take care
of the availability or non-availability of peer nodes. If the requested content is not within the
local DCDN system, DCDN server should be able to make the right decision to get it from
the other local DCDN systems without causing network congestion. Effective load-balancing
algorithms have to be developed in this regard. Based on the results of queuing delay analysis,
a basic algorithm for DCDN servers is proposed in the next chapter.

3.2.3

Billing and SLA (Service Level Agreement) Verification Software

DCDN has to provide content providers with accounting and access-related information. This
information has to be provided in the form of aggregate or detailed log files. In addition,
DCDN should collect accounting information to aid in operation, billing and SLA verification.
The DCDN Master surrogates deal with these content provider related issues.
At the same time, DCDN has to quantify proper remuneration for surrogates according to
their availability, performance, storage space, etc. There is a need for generalized systems or
protocols in the calculation of the contributions of surrogates and a local DCDN servers, on
the basis of the business model adopted for DCDN.

3.3

Business Model

The success of DCDN architecture depends upon building up a global DCDN tree consists
of Major/Local DCDN servers and considerably large number of DCDN surrogates. There
should be strong incentive for individuals to become a part of DCDN tree. The incentive is
the shared monetary benefit from the bonus pot, which is filled with the money saved by not
paying to the middlemen, that is, the commercial CDNs. According to their share of service the online availability, storage, bandwidth, processing power and other relevant factors - the
surrogates are to be offered proportionate remuneration.
A possible business model for DCDN could be that of Network Marketing/ Multilevel marketing which is based on pyramid scheme.

27

1
10
100
1,000
10,000
100,000
1,000,000
10,000,000
100,000,000
1,000,000,000
10,000,000,000

Figure 3.7: Pyramid Scheme

3.3.1

Network Marketing (NM)/ Multi Level Marketing (MLM)

Wikipedia defines it as follows: Multi-level marketing (MLM) (also called network marketing
or NM) is a business model that combines direct marketing with franchising [Wikipedia, b].
In a typical multi-level marketing or network marketing arrangement, individuals associate
with a parent company as an independent contractor or franchisee and are compensated based
on their sales of products or service, as well as the sales achieved by those they bring into
the business. This is like many franchise companies where royalties are paid from the sales of
individual franchise operations to the franchisor as well as to an area or region manager.
MLM is inspired by the mathematical model of Pyramid scheme. If a pyramid were started
by a human being at the top with just 10 people beneath him, and 100 beneath them, and
1000 beneath them, etc., the pyramid would involve everyone on earth in just ten layers of
people with a single man on top. The human pyramid would be about 60 feet high and the
bottom layer would have more than 4.5 billion people [Skeptic Dictonary, 2007]. Figure 3.7
will help us to see this:
This scheme is effectively used by MLM giants such as Amway, Big Planet, Excel communications, Mary Kay, etc [Wikipedia, a]. A general business model of NM/MLM Distributor
hierarchy (Figure 3.81 ), which resembles the DCDN hierarchy, shows the scope of adopting
NM/MLM model for the effective creation of DCDN tree of surrogates.
In the DCDN model, the Distributor will be replaced with the content provider, the first level
will be the net of Master DCDN servers and the second level will be of Local DCDN servers.
1

Ref: http://www.mlmknowhow.com/articles/startup/getpaid.htm

28

Figure 3.8: MLM Architecture

In other words, the DCDN administers will be franchising the concept to the Master/Local
server levels. They in turn recruit the final level of hierarchy - the surrogates - to store the
content in local levels. According to the expansion needs, more and more levels could be
envisaged in the long run. This can be achieved by adding different layers of Master DCDN
servers in different hierarchical levels.
Eventually, an active DCDN server develops a hierarchical substructure known as a downline, that looks like an organization chart in a company with a lot of employees. Each DCDN
server gets commission/remuneration on the service of surrogates in their down-line. There
are also likely to be performance bonuses available for reaching certain service levels. The
profit earned from the commission over its surrogates become the driving force for the DCDN
servers (Master/Local) to maintain their technological infrastructure (both hardware and
software) and to add more and more surrogates to their hierarchical structure. This will finally
improve the scalability and the efficiency of DCDN network.With this kind of business model,
there are no big capital requirements, no geographical limitations and no special education
or skills needed for its participants. Since, the revenue collected from the content providers
are proportionately shared among the surrogates it can become a low-overhead, home-based
business for the participating surrogates. Network marketing is a people-to-people business,
which goes very well with the idea of near peer-to-peer architecture of DCDN.

29

3.3.2

Special Scenarios of DCDN Advantage

The new architectural model suggested for DCDN and the corresponding MLM business model
will open up whole new possibilities in content distribution. DCDN architecture is supposed
to be more effective in distributing static content than that of dynamic content. The most
important beneficiaries of DCDN will be the popular streaming media sharing websites like
youtube.com and photo-sharing websites (e.g. Picasa Web Albums, Orkutpictures) who has
to support millions of media files uploaded throughout the world and to effectively deliver
to the end-users in a more distributive manner. The popular music sharing services will also
find DCDN as an effective and cheaper means of delivering their services to the customers.

30

Chapter 4

Performance Analysis and Load

Balancing Algorithm
The performance of DCDN architecture can be expressed in terms of total delay in retrieving
a Web content. Here, the DCDN surrogates are expected to be the bottlenecks for they are
the common Internet users with limited resources. So, we can say that the success of DCDN
architecture will depend upon the performance of DCDN surrogates.
This chapter analyzes the performance of a DCDN surrogate using queuing theory techniques.
On the basis of this analysis a load balancing algorithm for DCDN server is suggested.

4.1

Performance Parameters and Assumptions

Total delay in retrieving a content is the sum of propagation delay, processing delay at DCDN
surrogates and the transmission delay.
Transmission delay is the time required by a DCDN surrogate to transmit all data packets of
the requested content onto the transmission link. In our case, It is directly proportional to
the available bandwidth of DCDN surrogate. Once the packets are pushed onto the link, they
need to be propagated to the client. The time taken for propagation is called propagation
delay. Propagation delay is taken out of consideration in analyzing the performance of DCDN
architecture. This is because, it assumes replication of content much near to the clients than
that of conventional architectures. The processing speed of surrogates is assumed to be so
high that processing delay is negligible as compared to transmission delay.

31

In nutshell, the efficiency of DCDN network can be expressed in terms of transmission delay at
DCDN surrogate. This is termed as total system delay at the surrogates. In order to ensure
better performance a truncated buffer system is suggested at DCDN surrogates. Also we
assume a poisson process of randomly spaced requests in time and an exponential distribution
of service-time. It will result in M/M/c/k model of queuing analysis, where c is number of
servers or server daemon programs engaged and k is the total buffer size.

4.2

Queuing Metrics

Total system delay in a DCDN surrogate for different M/M/c/k models and corresponding
rejection rates are found out using the following formulas as explained by D. Gross and C.
M. Harris [Gross and Harris, 1998]. We assume to replicate the effect of multiple servers in a
single surrogate by running more than one DCDN surrogate daemons (as multiple processes
or threads) within the same machine.
Service Time (S): In our case, it is the transmission time, which is equal to;
S=

F ilesize
U pstreamCapacity

Therefore, Service rate of the DCDN surrogate = ( S1 )

Server Utilization (): = ( ) for M/M/1/k and

) for M/M/c/k queuing model

= ( c

where is the arrival rate of requests to DCDN surrogate.

Effective arrival rate e : e = (1 Pk ) wherePk is the probability of k requests in the
system.
Probablity of zero requests in the system P0 :
P0 =

c1
X
i=0

(n /)i (/)c 1 kc+1

+
i!
c!
1

1

Probablity of n customers in system for 0 n c Pn =

n
(
)
n!

Probablity of n customers in system for c n k Pn =

n
)
(
c!cnc

Average number of requests in the queue Lq :

Lq =

Pk

n=c (n

c)Pn

32

P0

P0

 Average number of requests in the system L:

L = Lq + (1 Pk )
Average System Delay W : Average System Delay is the time duration a request has to
wait from the moment it enters a server queue, till it is served by any of the servers
available to take a request.
for M/M/c/k, W =

L
e

Rejection Rate: The number of requests that will be lost due to congestion per unit
time is given by: Pk
If the mean arrival rate of requests in greater than the service rate of surrogates, it will choke
the surrogates. In order to avoid this scenario, the mean arrival rate of requests () is to
be kept less than the service rate of surrogates. In other words, server utilization () is kept
below one in all queuing models.
At the same time, we have to be cautious about the probability of blocking (loss) of requests.
Since we cannot afford the loss of requests beyond a very minimum level, rejection rate of
requests for different models is to be taken into account in the design of a load balancing
algorithm for DCDN server.

4.3

Queuing Theory Modeling for Different Scenarios

Different queuing theory models are analyzed for different cases to find out average system
delay and rejection rate as described in the previous section. The following assumptions are
made to analyze the queuing parameters.
1. The surrogates are supposed to have a minimum of DLS/Cable Web access.
2. Minimum capacity of DLS/Cable line is rated at 768 Kbps downstream and 128 Kbps
upstream.
Using a Web Page Analyzer1 it is found that the average size of Web pages of medium size
content providers (example: www.rajagiritech.ac.in) is about 30 KB. However, the upstream
capacity of surrogates will not be same for all surrogates in real-time scenario. We can
reasonably assume that there will also be some surrogates with higher level of connectivity
1

Available at: http://www.websiteoptimization.com/services/analyze/

33

Average Delay in DCDN Surrogate (sec)

Average Delay in DCDN Surrogate (sec)

M/M/1/1
M/M/1/2
M/M/1/3
M/M/2/2
M/M/2/3
M/M/3/3

M/M/1/1
M/M/1/2
M/M/1/3
M/M/2/2
M/M/2/3
M/M/3/3

0
20

40

60

80

20

Utilization in Percentage(Access Rate/Service Rate)

40

60

80

Utilization in Percentage(Access Rate/Service Rate)

(with 128 Kbps capacity)

(with 256 Kbps capacity )

Figure 4.1: Utilization v/s Total System Delay

who would be able to give a better performance. In order to reflect this scenario, we have
also analyzed the queuing delay for a doubled service rate of DCDN surrogates. That means,
the upstream capacity of surrogates is raised from 128 Kbps to 256 Kbps.
A surrogate originally intending to serve a single request at a time may actually end up serving
2 or 3 in a real-time scenario. This may happen if the multiple requests for a particular content
is only available with a single surrogate. In that case, the surrogate is supposed to serve those
requests with reduced service rates, i.e., for M/M/1/1 the service rate is ; for M/M/2/2 it
is /2, and for M/M/3/3 the rate is /3.
The values are found using QtsPlus, a queuing theory analysis software provided by D. Gross
and C. M. Harris2 [Gross and Harris, 1998]. The results of these analysis are compiled in
Figure 4.1 for 128 Kbps and 256 Kbps upstream capacity. The Rejection rate of different
queuing models are presented in Figure 4.2.

4.4

Load Balancing Algorithm for DCDN Servers

Many load-balancing algorithms have been proposed in the past to ensure scalable Web
servers [Bryhni et al., 2000; Godfrey et al., 2004; Aweya et al., 2002; Wolf and Yu, 2001;
Chen et al., 2005]. The stateless property of HTTP protocol by which requests can be routed
2

Available at: http://www.geocities.com/qtsplus/

34

Loss of requests per unit time

3
M/M/1/1
M/M/1/2
M/M/1/3
M/M/2/2
M/M/2/3
M/M/3/3

0
20

40

60

80

Utilization in Percentage(Access Rate/Service Rate)

Figure 4.2: Utilization v/s Rejection Rate
separately to different servers is widely used to achieve load sharing in a cluster of Web
servers [Bryhni et al., 2000]. The canonical name (CNAME) associated with a Web link can
be mapped to the IP addresses of a number of replicated servers, who hold the same content.
Bryhni et al. [2000] suggest that this mapping can be done at the network to achieve best
performance. Same techniques can be adopted for DCDN but by customizing it for its highly
distributed nature.
An algorithm for load-balancing in highly heterogeneous and dynamic P2P environment is
suggested by Godfrey et al. [2004]. They uses the concept of virtual server where a physical
node hosts one or more virtual servers. The load balancing is done by moving virtual servers
from heavily loaded physical nodes to lightly loaded physical servers. But it is proposed on the
assumption that load balancer has got very little control over where the objects are stored.
But in DCDN environment, DCDN server has got more control over the content within
its surrogates. Moreover, the load balancing algorithms in P2P systems, generally do not
consider the difference in capacity of its peers. In DCDN we can not discard this difference as
we want to offer as efficient service as that of a commercial CDN. The formulation of a simple
but efficient load balancing algorithm to ensure almost equal server load to the surrogates
by making use of the information and control residing with the DCDN server becomes an
inevitability.
By carefully analyzing the Utilization v/s Total System Delay graphs (Figure 4.1) and Uti35

lization v/s Rejection Rate graph (Figure 4.2) in the previous section, the following inferences
can be made.
1. The best performance is expected from DCDN, when surrogates follow M/M/c/c queuing models.
2. The reduction in average delay time is almost directly proportional to increase in upload
capacity, in all the scenarios.
3. Loss of requests can be reduced by increasing the number of requests in the whole
system by increasing the value of k in M/M/c/k queuing model.
Based on the above inferences we can suggest a load balancing algorithm for the DCDN severs.
An algorithm based on M/M/c/c model is expected to be more scalable and comparatively
higher efficient than other models. This reflection is made by considering an optimum balance
between total system delay and rejection rate. The real time scenario also suggests that there
may be cases where multiple content have to be served to different clients simultaneously
from a single surrogate. In the light of above discussion, we make the assumption that the
surrogates will be designed to support M/M/c/c queuing model of request streams where
the value of c will be proportional to the processing capacity of surrogates. The following
optimum server load algorithm for effective load balancing is proposed to ensure reasonable
load sharing between the surrogates.
Load Balancing Algorithm for DCDN Server
1: let, DCDN server has the knowledge of the service rate () of its surrogates;
2: let, DCDN server is aware of the requests send to () its surrogates;
3: let, DCDN surrogates support only M/M/c/c queuing models;
4: c is the maximum number of requests allowed in a particular surrogate;
5: Web requests arrive at the Local DCDN Server;
6: if requested content is available in the Local DCDN surrogate network then
7:

if there are surrogates with P0 (Probability of NO requests) equal to 100 (i.e., idle surrogates)
then

8:

send request to the surrogate with highest c value ( i.e., to surrogate with highest service
capacity);

9:
10:
11:

else
while search do not exceed the Max Trial Number do
find the surrogate with lowest Server Utilization

( = ( c
));

12:

end while

13:

send request to that surrogate;

36

14:

end if

15: else
16:

redirect request to other Local DCDN server who has the requested content;

17: end if

We expect that this algorithm will distribute the workload reasonably well between the surrogates. However, this can only be validated by conducting extensive simulations which reproduce the highly distributed DCDN environment. The next chapter provides those simulations
and its results.

37

Chapter 5

Simulations and Results

In the previous chapter, major two matrices of interest, namely queuing delay and rejection
rate at the DCDN surrogates were discussed. The results were compiled in the form of
graphs. On the basis of those results, a probable load balancing algorithm for DCDN servers
was suggested.
Various scenarios are created using simulation tool to replicate the DCDN as well as the
commercial client-server CDN architecture. Simulations are conducted to compare the performance of DCDN architecture with the client-server CDN architecture using optimum server
load - load balancing algorithm.
The simulations are conducted using Opnet IT Guru network simulator. The main reason
to use Opnet IT Guru is its user-friendliness in picking the predefined models and objects
using drag and drop functionality. The Opnet predefined model and objects are validated
and hence require no further validation. The devices, links and nodes in Opnet IT Guru are
using reasonable assumptions and enable us to have a strong data analysis
This chapter presents the goals, assumptions and the setup of simulations. The performance
comparison between different scenarios of DCDN and commercial CDN architectures using
optimum server load - load balancing algorithm is further discussed.

5.1

Goals

The objective of the simulations is to evaluate the feasibility of DCDN architecture. That
is to check the performance of DCDN architecture in comparison with that of commercial
client-server CDN architecture in terms of page response time, utilization of DCDN server
38

(load balancer, in case of conventional CDN) and utilization of DCDN surrogate (CDN server,
in case of conventional CDN). The simulation scenarios were designed to achieve the following
goals:
The simulations should be able to provide some reasonable data to show that the DCDN
architecture will be able to give better or at least the same performance of the commercial client-server CDN architecture.
The technologies and the protocols used in the simulation environment should reproduce
the standard protocols used in the industry.
The simulation should allow the addition, deletion and modification of the clients,
DCDN servers (load balancers) and the surrogates (servers) for easy comparison of
different parameters used for the evaluation.

5.2

Assumptions

The simulations are designed to simulate a commercial client-server CDN environment in the
first place and then to simulate the DCDN setup. The following assumptions are made to
create those environments:
DCDN server lies within the IP cloud unlike in the case of commercial CDN (where
it is the load balancer of CDN server farm). The use of an additional IP cloud between DCDN server and DCDN surrogates is assumed to represent this environment
(Figure D.2).
The simulations are conducted in a standard PC and the results are expected to be only
suggestive. However, we assume that similar scenarios of commercial CDN and DCDN
setup are comparable since both are conducted at similar environments.
The data obtained from the simulations can be scaled with an appropriate value so as
to have a reasonable approximation of the parameters assessed.

5.3

Overview of Simulation Setup

The experiment was conducted by choosing a standard commercial CDN setup serving 150
clients. Performance of the setup was found in terms of page response time, load balancer
39

Commercial DCDN:

DCDN:

DCDN:

CDN

Scenario 1

Scenario 2

Scenario 3

Number of Clients

150

150

75

30

Number

100

10

10

10

Load Balancing Algo-

round

server load

server load

server load

rithm

robin

of

Surro-

gates (or Servers)

Link

Capacity

(Mbps)

Table 5.1: Simulation Setup

utilization and server utilization. The environment was reset to represent DCDN architecture
and the above performance parameters were found again. The experiment was repeated until
the DCDN setup could replicate the performace of commercial CDN setup, by altering the
critical parameters of simulation enviornment . The critical parameters that defined the
different simulation scenarios were:
Number of Clients: The clients were all HTTP clients with requests of medium file size.
The number of requests in the system is directly proportional to the number of clients.
Number of Surrogates(or Servers): The ethernet servers in the commercial CDN setup
were replaced with larger number of ethernet work-stations as surrogates.
Link Capacity: The link capacity of DCDN surrogates are kept significantly lower than
the commercial CDN setup to reflect the DCDN architecture in simulation.
The four scenarios created by altering the above parameters for the simulation purpose are
given below:
Commercial CDN: It is the standard CDN setup with 150 medium HTTP clients. They were
served by a server farm of 3 CDN servers. The link capacity of the CDN servers was set to
100 Mbps to reflect the fact that commercial CDN can afford more resources. Round robin
algorithm was used for load balancing.
DCDN - Scenario 1: The scenario is changed to DCDN setup serving same number of (150)
medium HTTP clients. The three CDN servers in the previous setup was replaced with six
DCDN surrogates(work-stations). DCDN surrogate link capacities were reduced to 10 Mbps

40

to simulate the fact that they will have lower link capacity than of commercial CDN servers.
Optimum server load algorithm is used for load balancing.
DCDN - Scenario 2: In this DCDN setup, the number of clients was reduced to 75 by keeping
all other parameters the same as the previous setup. Optimum server load algorithm is used
for load balancing.
DCDN - Scenario 3: The number of clients was further reduced to 30 by keeping all other
parameters intact in this DCDN setup. Optimum server load algorithm is used for load
balancing.

5.4

Simulation Results

The simulations were conducted using the setups described in the previous section. The
number of clients, surrogates (or servers) and the link capacity of the surrogates used for the
simulations are given in Table 5.1. Different number of clients in different cases produced
different number of requests that were handled by the DCDN surrogates (or servers in the
case of commercial CDN).
The simulations were run long enough to achieve a steady system state. The page response
time, surrogate (or server) utilization and load balancer utilization are recorded for each case.
The simulation results and its implications are explained in the subsequent sections.

5.4.1

Page Response Time

Page response time is the interval between the instance at which an end-user at a terminal
enters a request for Website and the instance at which the Webpage is received at the terminal.
This parameter is very critical in our comparison of DCDN with commercial CDN, for it is
the most visible experience of the end-user regarding the performance of a CDN. The average
page response time obtained during the simulations are compiled in graph 5.1.
Commercial CDN architecture produce an excellent result for 150 clients using a server farm
of 3 servers connected using a hub. It proves the fact that commercial CDN provides a better
service for the end-users.
The DCDN scenario 1 where the same number of clients were allowed to fetch content from
six surrogate work-stations (double the number of servers in the previous case) has produced
an average page response time of around 15 seconds. It is compared to the less than 2 second

41

Average Page Response Time (Sec)

15

Commercial CDN
DCDN - Scenario 1
DCDN - Scenario 2
DCDN - Scenario 3

10

500

1000

1500

Simulation Time (Sec)

Figure 5.1: Page Response Time
average page response time of the similar commercial CDN setup. It shows that DCDN
architecture with similar setup of commercial CDN is inefficient. Though, the result seems
to be discouraging, it was perfectly in line with our early assumptions. Since the powerful
servers in the case of commercial CDN is replaced with work-stations and the link capacity
of the surrogates were reduced to 1/10 of that of CDN setup, the efficiency of system was
bound to be reduced considerably.
The aim of the experiment was to find out whether DCDN could replicate the performance
of commercial CDN in any scenario.
Because of the limitations of the Academic Version of - Opnet IT Guru, we could not increase
the number of surrogates. So, we reduced the number of clients to half, namely 75, in DCDN
scenario 2. By decreasing the number of clients we are decreasing the volume of requests.
The result was promising. There was a considerable improvement in the page response time.
It was reduced to nearly half. But it was still above the commercial CDN performance.
The number of clients was further reduced to 30 in DCDN scenario 3. The graph shows us
that DCDN scenario 3 gives us a curve as good as that of commercial CDN. This information
is very vital to our discussions.

42

Server(Surrogate) Utility (%)

Commercial CDN
DCDN - Scenario 1
DCDN - Scenario 2
DCDN - Scenario 3

0
0

500

1000

1500

Simulation Time (Sec)

Figure 5.2: DCDN Surrogate(Server) Utilization

5.4.2

DCDN Surrogate - CPU Utilization vs. CDN Server - CPU Utilization

CPU utilization is the measure of how much of the available processing power in an enterprise
is used. In our case, it will give us an idea about the amount of resources we need to put
in terms of processing power by a single surrogate. Though we cannot specify the exact
configurations of commercial CDN servers and the DCDN surrogate work-stations in the
Academic Version of Opnet IT Guru, the simulations does give us comparable outcomes. The
results are compiles in Figure 5.2
The commercial CDN server CPU utilization is very low (less than a percent) as expected.
The DCDN surrogates in scenario 1 and 2 use nearly double the processing power of that of
commercial CDN servers. The scenario 3 of DCDN setup gives us a surrogate CPU utilization
of less than a percent.

5.4.3

DCDN Server - CPU Utilization vs. CDN Load Balancer - CPU

Utilization

The CPU utilization of DCDN server, which is basically a load balancer and a redirector, is
critical in the design of DCDN architecture for it has to be run by the DCDN administrators

43

Load Balancer Utility (%)

0.3

Commercial CDN
DCDN - Scenario 1
DCDN - Scenario 2
DCDN - Scenario 3

0.2

0.1

500

1000

1500

Simulation Time (Sec)

Figure 5.3: DCDN Server (Load Balancer) Utilization
or their franchises. It will give us an idea about how powerful those machines should be.
The results as shown in Figure 5.3 suggests that DCDN scenario 3 could produce similar
outcomes as that of commercial CDN setup. However, the CPU utilization in all cases is
negligibly small.

5.5

Discussion

The whole exercise was to find out the feasibility of DCDN architecture in comparison with
the commercial CDN architecture. The average page response time was the key parameter
for our evaluation. The DCDN scenarios 1 and 2 could not reproduce the performance of
commercial CDN but left enough traits to suggest that DCDN setup could produce it if the
request load is further reduced. In DCDN scenario 3, the request load was further reduced
by reducing the number of clients to 30.
The results show that this scenario could produce the same performance as that of commercial
CDN which handled 150 clients. It gives us a valuable inference: DCDN architecture can
replicate the performance of commercial CDN, if the critical parameters are adjusted well
enough.
When we scale the simulations results, as we have assumed in the beginning, we can say
44

that to replicate the performance of commercial CDN using DCDN architecture, a server in
commercial CDN setup has to be replaced with 2 x 5 = 10 surrogates in DCDN setup (for,
the number of surrogate servers was doubled and the number of clients was reduced to 1/5)
when the link capacity of DCDN surrogate is reduced to 1/10 of that of commercial CDN.
Further research and experiments have to be done to verify this exact ratio. However, the
above results suggest that the ratio between the number of commercial CDN servers and
DCDN surrogates will fall within a reasonable limit. It also suggests that the DCDN architecture could fall well within financial viability limits for the number of surrogates needed to
support the system will not be that high.
Surrogate CPU utilization in DCDN setup also shows that it will not take a big chunk
of the processing capacity of the surrogate work-stations. This is important because, the
participating Internet users in DCDN architecture may not have to sacrifice a huge chunk of
the processing power of their machines. It will allow them to use their machines for all their
regular works, while the DCDN surrogate daemon running behind the scene.
DCDN server CPU utilization is as negligible as that of load balancer in the commercial CDN
setup. It suggests that running Local as well as Master DCDN servers within the Internet
cloud will not be a bottleneck.
In general, the results show that by using an efficient equal server load algorithm we could run
an effective DCDN for fast content retrieval that will not choke the surrogates, provided we
keep proper balance between the volume of requests and the number of surrogates available
to handle it.

45

Chapter 6

Conclusion and Future work

The thesis was an attempt to address some of the major disadvantages of existing architectures
for CDNs. The commercial client-server architecture is expensive in terms of its network as
well as financial costs. The medium and small scale content providers find it difficult to access
their service, because of the resultant higher financial liability. At the same time, in order
to meet the QoS agreement criteria with the clients, commercial CDNs tend to expand their
network infrastructure constantly even when the surplus resources with common Web users
are unexplored. It poses an unsustainable model of development.
The academic architectures try to provide effective content delivery in a peer-to-peer fashion.
But the efficiency of the system depends upon the reliability and commitment of the peers.
There are no effective measures built into the design of academic CDNs to address this issue.
The thesis proposes a new architecture which will empower the common Web users to create
a global net of CDN which will help content providers to distribute their Web content in
a more local and distributive manner. The proposed architecture of Distributed Content
Delivery Network (DCDN) offers proportionate remuneration to the participating nodes for
the service they provide in terms of processing power, bandwidth and Web connectivity. This
remuneration works as an incentive to the surrogates to maintain and support DCDN and
ensures a better service to the content providers and end-users.
The minor thesis exposes the DCDN procedures for content delivery and explores the possible
major challenges of this unique architecture. Based on queuing delay analysis, the paper assess
the performance of DCDN surrogates. The thesis then suggests a possible load balancing
algorithm for DCDN servers. It also proposes an effective business model for the wide spread
implementation of DCDN. The simulation results show that the DCDN architecture can

46

produce the same level of performance of that of commercial CDN if we can keep a proper
balance between the expected volume of requests and the number of DCDN surrogates.
The success of DCDN would heavily rely on the magnitude in which it will grow among the
Internet users. The business model suggested in the paper could address this issue. In this
architecture, the Internet users will take their share of responsibility in maintaining DCDN
and will inherit their share of revenue.

6.1

Future Work

This work suggests only an architectural prototype of DCDN. Majority of the design and
implementation issues are yet to be explored and worked out. The content distribution and
delivery processes dealt in this minor thesis deals only with most common scenarios. The
special cases like contingency plans in the wake of non-availability of a particular content in
a Local DCDN surrogate tree and the delivery of partially replicated content are yet to be
dealt in detail.
The development of a fully fledged algorithm for DCDN server by considering different traffic
distributions such as heavy-tailed and pareto distributions is also an important task before
us. The protocol development to incorporate DCDN servers to the DNS server net would be
another crucial milestone in the development of DCDN architecture.
Protecting the integrity and security of the content being distributed through DCDN is of
utmost importance since the content is being heavily decentralized and vulnerable to attacks
from hackers and malicious surrogates. Unique and effective protocols and security measures
are to be developed to ensure the integrity of content in DCDN architecture.
The accounting and billing mechanism which will measure the service of the DCDN surrogates in terms of it processing power, bandwidth, Web connectivity and availability to award
proportionate remuneration to the surrogates is another important research area.
Furthermore, the development of client-server program modules for the surrogates as well
as for the DCDN servers will constitute an essential part of the real-time success of DCDN
business model.

47

Appendix A

Softwares Used
1. OPNET IT Guru Network Simulator - Academic Edition.
Opnet IT Guru Academic Edition is a free software from Opnet Technologies. It is a
complete network simulation software with wide range of network devices from different vendors and across different platforms. However,the academic edition has limited
functionality as compared to the purchased software called the Opnet Modeler. Further
information for Opnet IT Guru and other Opnet products can be obtained from their
Website.
http://opnet.com/services/
2. QtsPlus Queuing Theory Software
QtsPlus is a queuing software that is given out with The Fundamentals of Queueing
Theory, 3rd Edition by Harris and Gross. This software allows easy analysis of the
metrics like server utilization, queueing delay, service delay and server idle time etc.
after the required inputs are provided to the software.
The software and information about it can be obtained from the following link.
http://www.geocities.com/qtsplus/

48

Appendix B

Abbreviations
CDN

Content Delivery Network

CPU

Central Processing Unit

DLS

Depth Limited Search

DNS

Domain Name System

HTTP

Hyper Text Transfer Protocol

IP

Internet Protocol

ISP

Internet Service Provider

MLM

Multi Level Marketing

NM

Network Marketing

P2P

Peer-to-Peer

QoS

Quality of Service

SLA

Service Level Agreement

49

Appendix C

Symbols
c

Number of servers

Number of requests in the system (including queue)

Mean arrival rate

Effective arrival rate

Lq

Average number of requests in the queue

Exponential

Mean service rate

P0

Probablity of zero requests in the system

Server utilization

Average system delay

50

Appendix D

Simulation Snapshots
The simulation snapshot showing the commercial CDN setup and DCDN setup - Figure D.1
and Figure D.2 - are given in next pages. Application configuration (Figure D.3) and profile
configuration (Figure D.4) are given in the following page.

51

Figure D.1: Simulation Snapshot - CDN

52

Figure D.2: Simulation Snapshot - DCDN

53

Figure D.3: Application Configuration

Figure D.4: Profile Configuration

54

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