SLICES-RI is being developed as a scientific instrument, following established methodologies and best practices from the scientific community. This approach is increasingly essential to address the accelerating pace of data-driven research, which continuously generates a deluge of publications. The core mission of a scientific instrument is to provide a standardized and trusted reference, enabling direct performance comparisons of algorithms and ensuring reproducibility — thereby simplifying and strengthening the peer review process. To meet these goals, SLICES-RI adopts an intent-based design and generates tailored Blueprints for specific scientific questions. While it does not aim to be exhaustive, this approach significantly reduces the complexity involved in designing and executing experiments. In this presentation, we share the current deployment status of SLICES-RI as it entered its pre-operational phase. We illustrate its capabilities through the Post-5G and Federated Learning Blueprints. Additionally, we highlight MRS/DMI, a key feature of SLICES-RI, which offers an advanced data management framework aligned with the FAIR principles and fully integrated into the experimental workflow.

In order to ensure optimal quality of experience toward end users during video streaming, automatic video quality assessment becomes an important field-of-interest to video service providers. Objective video quality metrics try to estimate perceived quality with high accuracy and in an automated manner. In traditional approaches, these metrics model the complex properties of the human visual system. More recently, however, it has been shown that machine learning approaches can also yield competitive results. In this paper, we present a novel no-reference bitstream-based objective video quality metric that is constructed by genetic programming-based symbolic regression. A key benefit of this approach is that it calculates reliable white-box models that allow us to determine the importance of the parameters. Additionally, these models can provide human insight into the underlying principles of subjective video quality assessment. Numerical results show that perceived quality can be modeled with high accuracy using only parameters extracted from the received video bitstream.

The xStreamer intends to be a flexible and modular open source streamer. The selection of current open source streamers which support both video and audio is limited, with VLC Media Player, Darwin Streaming Server and Helix DNA Server being the foremost solutions. The xStreamer distinguishes itself by providing a modularity that goes beyond the mere modular programming offered by the current open source solutions and that manifests itself in how the user controls and configures the streamer.

This poster discusses the performance of the TCP/IP stack and some common file transfer protocols when used in a scalable IP-based environment for digital media production. First, models were created to predict what to expect of these protocols. Afterwards, all protocols were extensively tested on a scalable setup, including clients, file servers (IBM xSeries), storage controllers and disks. Tuning the protocols, OS parameters and the use of specialized hardware (TCP Offload Engines) improved throughput and diminished processing power. Out of the models and current test results, a comparison was made between the different file transfer protocols, and the added value of an IP-based access network between user terminals and a central file server cluster is demonstrated. Up to 615 MB/s (5.16 Gbps) of traffic was reached from 1 quad Xeon IBM x366 (with attached storage) to a set of clients.

This paper describes the design of a novel tunnel set-up mechanism for Ethernet access networks. The establishment of VLAN-based tunnels is realised with a "scoped refresh" extension of the GVRP standard. For the distribution of QoS-related reservation parameters, a new GARP-based protocol (G2RP) is developed with a closed loop design for updating the reservation parameters and hop-by-hop admission control. Both protocols are implemented on a Linux test bed using the click modular router. Extensive performance evaluations were performed. The results are compared with Linux implementations of the other tunnel set-up mechanisms.

The growing widespread use of advanced multimedia and interactive real-time applications is setting forth new challenges such as end-to-end quality-of-service (QoS) and broadband Internet access. The high bandwidth needs are pushing fiber closer and closer to the home, and as such WDM (wavelength division multiplexing) seems ideally suited to be used in the broadband access feeder network which interconnects the Internet core networks and the last mile networks. In the HARMONICS project (Hybrid Access Reconfigurable Multi-wavelength Optical Networks for IP-based Communication Services), a novel DWDM (dense wavelength division multiplexing) based optical access feeder network is investigated. This feeder network transports IP, guarantees QoS and can feed various last mile networks, stimulating the convergence of access networks. VDSL and Hiperlan/2 are studied within the project as last mile access networks. To support end-to-end QoS, a distributed CORBA-based generic network management framework is being developed as part of the project. This paper elaborates on the framework which is aligned with TINA, although adapted to be more consistent and applicable. End-to-end QoS is based on Differentiated Services (DiffServ) at layer 3, various QoS supporting technologies at layer 2 and QoS mappings between both layers.

In this paper we envisage the issue of quality of service (QoS) management for multimedia services as an end to end QoS discovery problem. With this perception as a basis, we designed and implemented a layered QoS management architecture which handles QoS from the user's perspective, as well as from the end system's and the network's perspective. The architecture is decomposed into three layers. First there is the QoS specification, presentation and parameterization layer at which an end user is able to specify his/her QoS requirements in a comprehensible and qualitative way, and at which these QoS requirements are translated into parameterized terminal capabilities. Secondly, there is the QoS matching and negotiation layer at which the parameterized QoS capabilities of different terminal end systems are marched and compared in order to search for a QoS equilibrium. Finally, there is the QoS implementation layer which implements the resolved QoS equilibrium in the network and in the terminals. This generic architecture, which allows a de-abstraction of user defined QoS, has been implemented in the context of a CORBA based TINA platform.