HYDRA: High-performance Data Recording Architecture for Streaming Media

Abstract

This chapter describes the design for High-performance Data Recording Architecture (HYDRA). Presently, digital continuous media (CM) are well established as an integral part of many applications. In recent years, a considerable amount of research has focused on the efficient retrieval of such media for many concurrent users. The authors argue that scant attention has been paid to large-scale servers that can record such streams in real time. However, more and more devices produce direct digital output streams, either over wired or wireless networks, and various applications are emerging to make use of them. For example, cameras now provide the means in many industrial applications to monitor, visualize, and diagnose events. Hence, the need arises to capture and store these streams with an efficient data stream recorder that can handle both recording and playback of many streams simultaneously and provide a central repository for all data. With this chapter, the authors present the design of the HYDRA system, which uses a unified architecture that integrates multi-stream recording and retrieval in a coherent paradigm, and hence provides support for these emerging applications.