Maximizing streaming flows based on a novel video streaming framework

Video streaming is a kind of bandwidth hungry application. As a consequence, the number of streaming flows may be restricted. In this paper, a novel video streaming framework is designed, where multiple NVSs (Network Video Servers) form into a server group to collaboratively provide quality services. A novel problem - Maximum Streaming Flows (MSF), aiming to maximize the number of simultaneously online users is proposed. This problem is proved to be NP-Complete and can be simplified to MSF-2 by adding relays restriction. We design a (1 - ε) approximation algorithm, where ε is a constant which tends to be infinitesimal with the increasing number of successful streamed flows. We conduct extensive simulations to show the effectiveness of the methods proposed as compared with several traditional solutions.