A Distributed Adaptation Management Framework in Content Delivery Networks

With increasing diversity and heterogeneity of content access devices and network technologies as well as user preferences, content delivery has evolved into a matter of ubiquitous service where production, delivery and access of content form major challenges for content provider, network operator and user respectively. Content adaptation has been widely acknowledged as one of the most important aspects for ubiquitous content delivery. Incorporating content adaptation into content delivery network has been intensively investigated in recent years, but still remains as a big challenge due to not only the technology heterogeneity and complexity, but also the deployment implication facing the different players in the content delivery chain, e.g. content provider, network operator, user, third-party service provider. This implication is caused by the lack of infrastructural support for content adaptation in traditional content delivery network. This paper presents the design of such an infrastructure, called Adaptation Management Framework (AMF). More importantly, this design targets its application in a distributed manner to allow content adaptation take place across the content delivery chain. A working cycle of content adaptation under the infrastructure is described, and performances evaluation and analysis are presented in terms of scalability.