Supporting multimedia applications through network redesign

• Published in: International journal of communication systems Vol. 27; no. 3; pp. 430 - 448
• Main Authors: Hussain, Tahani H., Marimuthu, Paulvanna N., Habib, Sami J.
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Chichester, UK John Wiley & Sons, Ltd 01-03-2014; Wiley Subscription Services, Inc
• Subjects: data analysis; network assessment; Networks; NS-2 simulator; Performance evaluation; QoS metrics; Quality of service architectures; Redesign; simulation; Telephones; Voice; VoIP (protocol); VoIP services
• ISSN: 1074-5351; 1099-1131
• DOI: 10.1002/dac.2371

SUMMARYRecent evolutions in high‐performance computing and high speed broadband Internet access have paved a way to enterprise‐wide multimedia applications, which require stern QoS from the underlying networks. In this paper, we have explored threefold studies on existing enterprise network, whereby we proposed an analytical approach to evaluate the performance of the existing network; we have examined the feasibility of existing enterprise networks to accommodate voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) services with acceptable QoS, and we have redesigned the enterprise network to accommodate VoIP services to comply with the user defined QoS. The network performance is evaluated by number of VoIP calls sustained by the network, bandwidth utilization, loss rate and latency through Network Simulation (NS‐2) tool. We have derived a cost model to show the cost‐effectiveness of VoIP services over telephonic network. For a medium‐size enterprise network of 200 clients and 9 servers, our simulation results show that the redesign improves the network performance by increasing the number of VoIP calls by 57% and decreasing bandwidth utilization and packet loss rate by 20% and 7%, respectively. Moreover, the proposed network redesign demonstrates that the network can be scalable and it can handle up to 4% increased voice calls in the future maintaining QoS standards. Copyright © 2012 John Wiley & Sons, Ltd.
A framework for assessing the capacity of existing enterprise network to support voice over Internet protocol (VoIP) is proposed. Redesign solutions are provided to meet QoS requirements and to facilitate the availability of resources for future growth. The network performance is evaluated by bandwidth utilization, data loss rate, latency, and number of VoIP calls sustained by the redesigned network. Furthermore, a cost model is derived to show the cost‐effectiveness of VoIP services over conventional telephonic network.