On distributed multimedia presentational applications: functional and computational architecture and QoS negotiation

Approaches to a functional and a computational architecture for distributed multimedia presentational applications are developed. These approaches are illustrated by a case study, a multimedia news-on-demand service. The concept of Quality of Service (QoS) parameters is seen to determine the new characteristics of distributed multimedia applications. Accordingly the computational architecture for distributed multimedia presentational applications is developed in a QoS driven way within the the framework of the Reference Model of Open Distributed Processing. The concept of QoS interfaces is introduced in order to handle the QoS negotiation in a general and generic way. Objects in a distributed multimedia application can negotiate their QoS parameters through these QoS interfaces. Using this approach, variants of QoS negotiation protocols are investigated. Ke yword Codes: C.2.2; H.5.1 Ke ywords: Network Protocols, Multimedia Information Systems