MMB: Scalable Multimedia Messaging Box for Mobile and Wireline Internet

1
MMB Scalable Multimedia Messaging Boxfor Mobile
and Wireline Internet

• Milind M. Buddhikot
• mbuddhikot_at_bell-labs.comDepartment of High Speed
  Mobile Data
• Lucent Bell Labs
• Sumi Choi, Scott Miller
• (syc_at_arl.wustl.edu, scm_at_lucent.com)

2
Outline

• Traditional messaging
• Multimedia messaging
• New ideas Concept of media handles and media
  outbox
• Integration of profile driven Content Adaptation
• Multimedia Messaging Box(MMB) architecture
• Software components
• Scalable cluster implementations
• Demo

3
Traditional Mail Messaging Model
smtp.sprint.com
smtp.service.com
chair.lucent.com
As Outlook
sendmail
sendmail
SMTP/TCP/IP
sendmail
SMTP/TCP/IP
Msg delivery
IMAP/TCP/IP
As inbox
IMAP Server
smtp.aol.com
Msg viewing
Bs Outlook
bronx.dnrc.bell-labs.com

• Messages
• Legacy Documents (text, html, MSWord) and
  images.
• New Audio/video (Ex MP3 music files, group
  meetings )
• Store-and-forward used for message
  routing/delivery
• Inbox maintains delivered msgs for A on
  bronx.dnrc
• POP3/IMAP allows A to access the Inbox
• Mail client (eg. outlook) for interfacing inbox
  via POP3/IMAP
• Messages stored in receiver As inbox
• ?Messages come to the receiver (A)

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Drawbacks

• Store-and-forward inappropriate for audio/video
  messages
• Large video messages replicated many times
• Enforcing explicit content ownership is difficult
• Messages replicated by mail servers/receivers
• Enforcing content access permissions difficult
• Messages replicated/forwarded easily by receivers
• Solution
• ? Concept of outbox and limited access to outbox
• Lack of support for diverse access methods,
  devices
• Clients (PC, Laptops, Pocket PC, PDA, cell
  phones)
• Networks (wireless/wireline)
• Solution
• ? Content Adaptation Service

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New Video Messaging Model
sendmail
As Outlook
As inbox
IMAP Server
Bronx.dnrc.bell-labs.com
As Outbox
Outbox Server
outbox.dnrc.bell-labs.com

• Key Concept receiving party comes to the media.
• Video clips sit in the sender As outbox on
  outbox.dnrc
• People who get a message connect to the As
  outbox and view the video!
• Key difference now there is an inbox that only
  A sees and an outbox that he can let others see.

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STEP 1 A Records a message

• A records/uploads MediaClip and gets back a
  MediaHandle that describes the clip
• MediaHandle contains
• expiry date, policies,

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STEP 2A Sends B a Video Message
Find Bs inbox on Att.net network And deliver
handle Using SMTP/TCP/IP
points2

• Notice, A sent B the MediaHandle, not the
  MediaClip

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STEP3 B Gets the MediaHandle

• Bs outlook ran the playback GUI and gives it the
  handle

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STEP 4 B Watches the Video Message

• Before clip is played back B may have to be
  authenticated by As Outbox server!

• RTP used for the media data

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Adding Content Adaptation

• A has recorded his video clip in 1.5 Mbps MPEG2
  format with 640 x 480 CIF resolution
• B only has a PDA capable of playing H.263 video
  from a wireless connection of 144 Kbps
• Content adaptation adapts As video clip for Bs
  need.
• (MPEG2, 640x480 (CIF), 1.5 Mbps) ? (H.263, 160x20
  (QCIF), 144 Kbps)
• Outbox server must support content conversions of
  
• MPEG1,2,4, AVI, REAL, H.263, CMF for video
• MP3, Wave, AVI, MPEG, Real for audio

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Seeking Scalability Splitting the Outbox

• As outbox split into two (logical or physical)
  boxes As Handle Box and As Media Box
• HandleBox stores the handles
• MediaBox stores the media (a/v) clips
• Can be implemented on physically different
  resources thus virtualizing the outbox

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Recap

• As mailboxes now consist of
• Inbox (for regular messages)
• Outbox HandleBox MediaBox (for sending
  multimedia messages)
• Legacy Inbox
• Inbox written to by SMTP server
• Inbox read by IMAP/POP3 server
• New Outbox
• HandleBox written and read by HandleBox Server
• Handlebox can be a traditional IMAP folder!
• MediaBox written/read by MediaBox Server
• ? MMB Media Message Box

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MMB Media Message Box
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Media Message Box (MMB)
MMB
AAA and Profile Server
Scott, Katie Toms Profile

• MMB box supports legacy inbox and new outboxes
• MMB box supports
• SMTP forwarding (sendmaild)
• IMAP/POP access (to legacy Inbox)
• Interfaces for creating and managing handles (in
  HandleBox)
• Upload and Streaming Recording (to MediaBox)
• Content adaptation server and Profile server
• Media access from message receivers

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Scalability of MMB

• MailBoxBricks
• Client inbox, Client HandleBox
• MediaBoxBricks
• Store media files of clients
• Concept of Virtual Outbox
• Each user is assigned to one MailBoxBrick
• Multiple MediaBoxBricks form distributed storage
  for multimedia files
• MailBoxBrick maintains virtual outbox map
• which media belong to which messages
• which messages belong to which user

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Advantages

• Scalability
• Adding New bricks on the fly when more space is
  needed.
• Transcoding of each clip done locally at each
  MediaBoxBrick
• Parallelism in transcoding
• Fault tolerance and Load-balance
• Controlled message replication

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MailBox Brick Implementation

• Single Linux box with
• SendmailD, IMAPd
• HandleD
• Media Access Interface
• Handle server
• Interfaces Handleboxes (implemented as a IMAP
  folder)
• Allocates, deallocates handles
• Media Access Interface
• Servlets on TomCat provide web based media access
  from receivers
• Authenticates users
• Interfaces Gamma content adaptation server

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Media Brick Implementation

• Linux box with
• Media storage
• Media provider
• Gamma content adaptation server
• Media storage
• Multimedia messages are stored
• ftp upload
• Streaming recording (not implemented)
• Media provider
• Plays back a media when requested
• Streaming through Darwin
• Directly from TomCat
• Content adaptation
• Gamma content adaptation server
• transforms when required

ftpd
TCP/IP
Darwin
Gamma Content Adaptation Server
Media boxes
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Demo Setup

• Developed
• Outbox
• KNIEF client modifications
• Three clients
• Laptop
• Picturebook
• PDA

Sumi
Email Client
Sony Laptop
KNIFE
Win98
To HandleD, ftpd
Sony Picturebook W/ Camera
WinCE
Milind
Salim
PocketPC
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Sequence of Demo

• Steps
• Video messaging
• Create a handle with a MPEG movie file
• Send the handle to a group of people (Sumi,
  Milind, and Salim)
• Sumi receives the handle from a Laptop and access
  the media
• Milind from a Picuturebook
• Salim from a PDA
• A handle appears on the inbox of each.
• Retrieve and display the movie from the outbox
• Other media format
• Create a handle with a powerpoint file (treated
  as another type of media)
• Send it to a receiver
• Adapted content shown on the receivers device

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Summary and Conclusions
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Summary and Conclusions

• A scalable Multimedia Messaging platform
• important component of 3G wireless and other
  networks
• Our Contributions
• Idea of Media Handles and Handleboxes
• Scalable Virtual outbox
• Integration of Gamma transcoding support for
  content adaptation
• Software Implementation on Linux platform
  utilizing existing software
• Integration with other services possible
• SMSC, Billing (in progress)

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Virtual Outbox Map

• Ex are clients served by MMB
• Client C1 Scotts Virtual Outbox
  (MailBoxBrick10, MediaBoxBrick0,4,6)
• assigned Scotts (inbox, HandleBox) on
  MailBoxBrick10
• Scott has video messages .
• HandleBox server (handleD) on MailBoxBrick10
  assigns these messages to different
  MediaBoxBricks 0,4,6 creating distributed
  MediaBox for C1 (Scott)
• m1 to 6, m2 to 0, mk to 4 etc.
• Message atomically stored at a brick
• No striping of messages