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225
Network Coding for Large Scale Content Distribution
"... We propose a new scheme for content distribution of large files that is based on network coding. With network coding, each node of the distribution network is able to generate and transmit encoded blocks of information. The randomization introduced by the coding process eases the scheduling of bloc ..."
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Cited by 493 (7 self)
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We propose a new scheme for content distribution of large files that is based on network coding. With network coding, each node of the distribution network is able to generate and transmit encoded blocks of information. The randomization introduced by the coding process eases the scheduling of block propagation, and, thus, makes the distribution more efficient. This is particularly important in large unstructured overlay networks, where the nodes need to make decisions based on local information only. We compare network coding to other schemes that transmit unencoded information (i.e. blocks of the original file) and, also, to schemes in which only the source is allowed to generate and transmit encoded packets. We study the performance of network coding in heterogeneous networks with dynamic node arrival and departure patterns, clustered topologies, and when incentive mechanisms to discourage free-riding are in place. We demonstrate through simulations of scenarios of practical interest that the expected file download time improves by more than 20-30 % with network coding compared to coding at the server only and, by more than 2-3 times compared to sending unencoded information. Moreover, we show that network coding improves the robustness of the system and is able to smoothly handle extreme situations where the server and nodes departure the system.
Complexity and Approximation
, 1999
"... Abstract. In this survey the following model is considered. We assume that an instance I of a computationally hard optimization problem has been solved and that we know the optimum solution of such instance. Then a new instance I ′ is proposed, obtained by means of a slight perturbation of instance ..."
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Cited by 194 (1 self)
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Abstract. In this survey the following model is considered. We assume that an instance I of a computationally hard optimization problem has been solved and that we know the optimum solution of such instance. Then a new instance I ′ is proposed, obtained by means of a slight perturbation of instance I. How can we exploit the knowledge we have on the solution of instance I to compute a (approximate) solution of instance I ′ in an efficient way? This computation model is called reoptimization and is of practical interest in various circumstances. In this article we first discuss what kind of performance we can expect for specific classes of problems and then we present some classical optimization problems (i.e. Max Knapsack, Min Steiner Tree, Scheduling) in which this approach has been fruitfully applied. Subsequently, we address vehicle routing problems and we show how the reoptimization approach can be used to obtain good approximate solution in an efficient way for some of these problems. 1
Near-optimal network design with selfish agents
, 2003
"... We introduce a simple network design game that models how independent selfish agents can build or maintain a large network. In our game every agent has a specific connectivity requirement, i.e. each agent has a set of terminals and wants to build a network in which his terminals are connected. Possi ..."
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Cited by 151 (19 self)
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We introduce a simple network design game that models how independent selfish agents can build or maintain a large network. In our game every agent has a specific connectivity requirement, i.e. each agent has a set of terminals and wants to build a network in which his terminals are connected. Possible edges in the network have costs and each agent’s goal is to pay as little as possible. Determining whether or not a Nash equilibrium exists in this game is NP-complete. However, when the goal of each player is to connect a terminal to a common source, we prove that there is a Nash equilibrium as cheap as the optimal network, and give a polynomial time algorithmtofinda(1+ε)-approximate Nash equilibrium that does not cost much more. For the general connection game we prove that there is a 3-approximate Nash equilibrium that is as cheap as the optimal network, and give an algorithm to find a (4.65 +ε)-approximate Nash equilibrium that does not cost much more.
Modelling Data-Centric Routing in Wireless Sensor Networks
"... Sensor networks differ from traditional networks in several ways: sensor networks have severe energy constraints, redundant low-rate data, and many-to-one flows. The end-to-end routing schemes that have been proposed in the literature for mobile ad-hoc networks are not appropriate under these settin ..."
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Cited by 129 (1 self)
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Sensor networks differ from traditional networks in several ways: sensor networks have severe energy constraints, redundant low-rate data, and many-to-one flows. The end-to-end routing schemes that have been proposed in the literature for mobile ad-hoc networks are not appropriate under these settings. Data-centric technologies are needed that perform in-network aggregation of data to yield energy-efficient dissemination. In this paper we model data-centric routing and compare its performance with traditional end-to-end routing schemes. We examine the impact of source-destination placement and communication network density on the energy costs, delay, and robustness of data aggregation. We show that data-centric routing offers significant performance gains across a wide range of operational scenarios.
Polynomial Time Algorithms for Network Information Flow
- in 15th ACM Symposium on Parallel Algorithms and Architectures
, 2003
"... The famous max-flow min-cut theorem states that a source node s can send information through a network (V; E) to a sink node t at a data rate determined by the min-cut separating s and t. Recently it has been shown that this rate can also be achieved for multicasting to several sinks provided that t ..."
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Cited by 122 (1 self)
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The famous max-flow min-cut theorem states that a source node s can send information through a network (V; E) to a sink node t at a data rate determined by the min-cut separating s and t. Recently it has been shown that this rate can also be achieved for multicasting to several sinks provided that the intermediate nodes are allowed to reencode the information they receive. In contrast, we present graphs where without coding the rate must be a factor jV j) smaller. However, so far no fast algorithms for constructing appropriate coding schemes were known. Our main result are polynomial time algorithms for constructing coding schemes for multicasting at the maximal data rate.
Cooperative security for network coding file distribution," in
- Proc. of IEEE INFOCOM'06,
, 2006
"... Abstract-Peer-to-peer content distribution networks can suffer from malicious participants that intentionally corrupt content. Traditional systems verify blocks with traditional cryptographic signatures and hashes. However, these techniques do not apply well to more elegant schemes that use network ..."
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Cited by 109 (2 self)
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Abstract-Peer-to-peer content distribution networks can suffer from malicious participants that intentionally corrupt content. Traditional systems verify blocks with traditional cryptographic signatures and hashes. However, these techniques do not apply well to more elegant schemes that use network coding techniques for efficient content distribution. Architectures that use network coding are prone to jamming attacks where the introduction of a few corrupted blocks can quickly result in a large number of bad blocks propagating through the system. Identifying such bogus blocks is difficult and requires the use of homomorphic hashing functions, which are computationally expensive. This paper presents a practical security scheme for network coding that reduces the cost of verifying blocks on-the-fly while efficiently preventing the propagation of malicious blocks. In our scheme, users not only cooperate to distribute the content, but (well-behaved) users also cooperate to protect themselves against malicious users by informing affected nodes when a malicious block is found. We analyze and study such cooperative security scheme and introduce elegant techniques to prevent DoS attacks. We show that the loss in the efficiency caused by the attackers is limited to the effort the attackers put to corrupt the communication, which is a natural lower bound in the damage of the system. We also show experimentally that checking as low as 1-5% of the received blocks is enough to guarantee low corruption rates.
Provisioning a Virtual Private Network: A network design problem for multicommodity flow
- In Proceedings of the 33rd Annual ACM Symposium on Theory of Computing
, 2001
"... Consider a setting in which a group of nodes, situated in a large underlying network, wishes to reserve bandwidth on which to support communication. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are services that support such a construct; rather than building a new physical network on the group of nodes that must ..."
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Cited by 109 (13 self)
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Consider a setting in which a group of nodes, situated in a large underlying network, wishes to reserve bandwidth on which to support communication. Virtual private networks (VPNs) are services that support such a construct; rather than building a new physical network on the group of nodes that must be connected, bandwidth in the underlying network is reserved for communication within the group, forming a virtual “sub-network.” Provisioning a virtual private network over a set of terminals gives rise to the following general network design problem. We have bounds on the cumulative amount of traffic each terminal can send and receive; we must choose a path for each pair of terminals, and a bandwidth allocation for each edge of the network, so that any traffic matrix consistent with the given upper bounds can be feasibly routed. Thus, we are seeking to design a network that can support a continuum of possible traffic scenarios. We provide optimal and approximate algorithms for several variants of this problem, depending on whether the traffic matrix is required to be symmetric, and on whether the designed network is required to be a tree (a natural constraint in a number of basic applications). We also establish a relation between this collection of network design problems and a variant of the facility location problem introduced by Karger and Minkoff; we extend their results by providing a stronger approximation algorithm for this latter problem. 1
Boosted sampling: Approximation algorithms for stochastic optimization problems
- IN: 36TH STOC
, 2004
"... Several combinatorial optimization problems choose elements to minimize the total cost of constructing a feasible solution that satisfies requirements of clients. In the STEINER TREE problem, for example, edges must be chosen to connect terminals (clients); in VERTEX COVER, vertices must be chosen t ..."
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Cited by 98 (23 self)
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Several combinatorial optimization problems choose elements to minimize the total cost of constructing a feasible solution that satisfies requirements of clients. In the STEINER TREE problem, for example, edges must be chosen to connect terminals (clients); in VERTEX COVER, vertices must be chosen to cover edges (clients); in FACILITY LOCATION, facilities must be chosen and demand vertices (clients) connected to these chosen facilities. We consider a stochastic version of such a problem where the solution is constructed in two stages: Before the actual requirements materialize, we can choose elements in a first stage. The actual requirements are then revealed, drawn from a pre-specified probability distribution π; thereupon, some more elements may be chosen to obtain a feasible solution for the actual requirements. However, in this second (recourse) stage, choosing an element is costlier by a factor of σ> 1. The goal is to minimize the first stage cost plus the expected second stage cost. We give a general yet simple technique to adapt approximation algorithms for several deterministic problems to their stochastic versions via the following method. • First stage: Draw σ independent sets of clients from the distribution π and apply the approximation algorithm to construct a feasible solution for the union of these sets. • Second stage: Since the actual requirements have now been revealed, augment the first-stage solution to be feasible for these requirements.
Networked Slepian-Wolf: Theory, Algorithms and Scaling Laws
- IEEE Transactions on Information Theory
, 2003
"... Consider a set of correlated sources located at the nodes of a network, and a set of sinks that are the destinations for some of the sources. We consider the minimization of cost functions which are the product of a function of the rate and a function of the path weight. We consider both the data ..."
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Cited by 93 (8 self)
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Consider a set of correlated sources located at the nodes of a network, and a set of sinks that are the destinations for some of the sources. We consider the minimization of cost functions which are the product of a function of the rate and a function of the path weight. We consider both the data gathering scenario, which is relevant in sensor networks, and general tra#c matrices, relevant for general networks. The minimization is achieved by jointly optimizing (a) the transmission structure, which we show consists in general of a superposition of trees from each of the source nodes to its corresponding sink nodes, and (b) the rate allocation across the source nodes, which is done by Slepian-Wolf coding. We show that the overall minimization can be achieved in two concatenated steps.
Approximation Techniques for Utilitarian Mechanism Design
, 2005
"... This paper deals with the design of efficiently computable incentive compatible, or truthful, mechanisms for combinatorial optimization problems with multi-parameter agents. We focus on approximation algorithms for NP-hard mechanism design problems. These algorithms need to satisfy certain monotonic ..."
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Cited by 92 (5 self)
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This paper deals with the design of efficiently computable incentive compatible, or truthful, mechanisms for combinatorial optimization problems with multi-parameter agents. We focus on approximation algorithms for NP-hard mechanism design problems. These algorithms need to satisfy certain monotonicity properties to ensure truthfulness. Since most of the known approximation techniques do not fulfill these properties, we study alternative techniques. Our first contribution is a quite general method to transform a pseudopolynomial algorithm into a monotone FPTAS. This can be applied to various problems like, e.g., knapsack, constrained shortest path, or job scheduling with deadlines. For example, the monotone FPTAS for the knapsack problem gives a very efficient, truthful mechanism for single-minded multi-unit auctions. The best previous result for such auctions was a 2-approximation. In addition, we present a monotone PTAS for the generalized assignment problem with any bounded number of parameters per agent. The most efficient way to solve packing integer programs (PIPs) is LP-based randomized rounding, which also is in general not monotone. We show that primal-dual greedy algorithms achieve almost the same approximation ratios for PIPs as randomized rounding. The advantage is that these algorithms are inherently monotone. This way, we can significantly improve the approximation ratios of truthful mechanisms for various fundamental mechanism design problems like single-minded combinatorial auctions (CAs), unsplittable flow routing and multicast routing. Our approximation algorithms can also be used for the winner determination in CAs with general bidders specifying their bids through an oracle.
