File distribution in networks with multimedia storage servers

In this paper, we consider a problem in networks with storage servers for p roviding multimedia service. The design involves assigning communication li nk capacity, sizing the multimedia servers, and distributing different type s of content at each server, while guaranteeing an upper limit on the indiv idual end-to-end blocking probability. We consider alternative methods for obtaining the end-to-end blocking probability with low computation time and present optimization procedures to obtain an optimal solution. Under a lin ear cost structure, our numerical investigations consider different scenari os that might be helpful in understanding how to distribute multimedia cont ent for a cost-optimized solution. (C) 2001 John Wiley & Sons, Inc.