Configuration and synchronization management in distributed multimedia systems

66 pagesThis annual technical report presents the current state of the project OPTIMUS 01 IR 605 'Optimization, Modeling and Implementation of Distributed Multimedia Systems', which is a research activity at St. Petersburg Technical University, Distributed Computing and Networks Department in collaboration with Stuttgart University, Distributed Systems Department. The project is supported by a research grant of the 'Bundesministeriums für Bildung, Wissenschaft, Forschung und Technologie' of Germany. The project is dedicated to the problems of configuration and synchronization management modeling, analysis, optimization and development for distributed multimedia systems. The annual report presents the methods, models, algorithms, mechanisms, and a simulation tool developed for analysis, optimization and design of distributed multimedia application configuration management, negotiation and resource reservation protocol, and adaptive synchronization protocol, that support configurable distributed multimedia applications. Results of computational experiments conducted for complexity and accuracy evaluation of algorithms proposed are presented as well. Problems of testbed platform development and implementation for configuration and synchronization management of distributed multimedia systems are discussed. The research results obtained are oriented on the further development of CINEMA (Configurable IntEgrated Multimedia Architecture) that was designed at the Distributed Systems Department of Stuttgart University and supports development and control of multimedia applications with arbitrary processing topologies consisting of multiple data sources and sinks as well as arbitrary intermediate processing stages