Research Resources for Network Application Studies

The growth of computer networks has led to increasing diversity of Internet applications, including streaming media and network games. However, without precise information on how network and system improvements benefit the networked application user, it is difficult to properly assess the benefits of new network treatments or to design the next generation networks that will effectively support the QoS of emerging applications. This research attempts to bridge this gap in understanding with three innovative projects: 1) integrating measures of network performance with user perception; 2) quality of service for network games; and 3) perceived quality of adaptive streaming media repair. With the requested research resources, we have developed an application performance studies laboratory that allows us to finely control network performance for a range of selected networked applications. Each project shares research resources in the new laboratory to measure performance for interactive applications, network games and streaming media repair, as appropriate.