Machine Learning-Based Quality-Aware Power and Thermal Management of Multistream HEVC Encoding on Multicore Servers

The emergence of video streaming applications, together with the users’ demand for high-resolution contents, has led to the development of new video coding standards, such as High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC). HEVC provides high efficiency at the cost of increased complexity. This higher computational burden results in increased power consumption in current multicore servers. To tackle this challenge, algorithmic optimizations need to be accompanied by content-aware application-level strategies, able to reduce power while meeting compression and quality requirements. In this paper, we propose a machine learning-based power and thermal management approach that dynamically learns and selects the best encoding configuration and operating frequency for each of the videos running on multicore servers, by using information from frame compression, quality, encoding time, power, and temperature. In addition, we present a resolution-aware video assignment and migration strategy that reduces the peak and average temperature of the chip while maintaining the desirable encoding time. We implemented our approach in an enterprise multicore server and evaluated it under several common scenarios for video providers. On average, compared to a state-of-the-art technique, for the most realistic scenario, our approach improves BD-PSNR and BD-rate by 0.54 dB, and 8%, respectively, and reduces the encoding time, power consumption, and average temperature by 15.3%, 13%, and 10%, respectively. Moreover, our proposed approach increases BD-PSNR and BD-rate compared to the HEVC Test Model (HM), by 1.19 dB and 24%, respectively, without any encoding time degradation, when power and temperature constraints are relaxed.

A Machine Learning-Based Strategy for Efficient Resource Management of Video Encoding on Heterogeneous MPSoCs

David Atienza Alonso, Arman Iranfar, William Andrew Simon, Marina Zapater Sancho

The design of new streaming systems is becoming a major area of research to deploy services targeted in the Internet-of-Things (IoT) era. In this context, the new High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) standard provides high efficiency and scalability of quality at the cost of increased computational complexity for edge nodes, which is a new challenge for the design of IoT systems. The usage of hardware acceleration in conjunction with general-purpose cores in Multiprocessor Systems-on-Chip (MPSoCs) is a promising solution to create heterogeneous computing systems to manage the complexity of real-time streaming for high-end IoT systems, achieving higher throughput and power efficiency when compared to conventional processors alone. Furthermore, Machine Learning (ML) provides a promising solution to efficiently use this next-generation of heterogeneous MPSoC designs that the EDA industry is developing by dynamically optimizing system performance under diverse requirements such as frame resolution, search area, operating frequency and stream allocation. In this work, we propose an ML-based approach for stream allocation and Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS) management on a heterogeneous MPSoC composed of ARM cores and FPGA fabric containing hardware accelerators for the motion estimation of HEVC encoding. Our experiments on a Zynq7000 SoC outline 20% higher throughput when compared to the state-of-the-art streaming systems for next-generation IoT devices.

2018

MAMUT: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Real-Time Multi-User Video Transcoding

David Atienza Alonso, Luis Maria Costero Valero, Arman Iranfar, Marina Zapater Sancho

Real-time video transcoding has recently raised as a valid alternative to address the ever-increasing demand for video contents in servers' infrastructures in current multi-user environments. High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC) makes efficient online transcoding feasible as it enhances user experience by providing the adequate video configuration, reduces pressure on the network, and minimizes inefficient and costly video storage. However, the computational complexity of HEVC, together with its myriad of configuration parameters, raises challenges for power management, throughput control, and Quality of Service (QoS) satisfaction. This is particularly challenging in multi-user environments where multiple users with different resolution demands and bandwidth constraints need to be served simultaneously. In this work, we present MAMUT, a multi-agent machine learning approach to tackle these challenges. Our proposal breaks the design space composed of run-time adaptation of the transcoder and system parameters into smaller sub-spaces that can be explored in a reasonable time by individual agents. While working cooperatively, each agent is in charge of learning and applying the optimal values for internal HEVC and system-wide parameters. In particular, MAMUT dynamically tunes Quantization Parameter, selects number of threads per video, and sets the operating frequency with throughput an d video quality objectives under compression and power consumption constraints. We implement MAMUT on an enterprise multicore server and compare equivalent scenarios to state-of-the-art alternative approaches. The obtained results reveal that MAMUT consistently attains up to 8x improvement in terms of FPS violations (and thus Quality of Service), 24% power reduction, as well as faster and more accurate adaptation both to the video contents and available resources.

IEEE2019

Resource Management for Power-Constrained HEVC Transcoding Using Reinforcement Learning

David Atienza Alonso, Luis Maria Costero Valero, Arman Iranfar, Marina Zapater Sancho

The advent of online video streaming services along with the users' demand for high-quality contents require High Efficiency Video Coding (HEVC), which provides higher quality and compression at the cost of increased complexity. On one hand, HEVC exposes a set of dynamically tunable parameters to provide trade-offs among Quality-of-Service (QoS), performance, and power consumption of multi-core servers. On the other hand, resource management of modern multi-core servers is in charge of adapting system-level parameters, as operating frequency and multithreading, to deal with concurrent applications and their requirements. Therefore, efficient multi-user HEVC streaming necessitates joint adaptation of application- and system-level parameters. Nonetheless, dealing with such a large and dynamic design-space is difficult to address through conventional strategies. In this work, we develop a multiagent Reinforcement Learning framework to jointly adjust application- and system-level parameters at runtime to satisfy the QoS of multi-user HEVC streaming in power-constrained servers. The benefits of our approach are revealed in terms of adaptability and quality (up to to 4x improvements in terms of QoS when compared to a static scheme), and learning time (6x faster than an equivalent mono-agent implementation). Finally, we show how power-capping techniques formulated outperform the hardware-based power capping with respect to quality.

2020

MAMUT: Multi-Agent Reinforcement Learning for Efficient Real-Time Multi-User Video Transcoding

David Atienza Alonso, Luis Maria Costero Valero, Arman Iranfar, Marina Zapater Sancho

IEEE2019