OPTIMAL PROVISIONING AND MANAGEMENT OF BANDWIDTH IN A VIDEO-ON DEMAND SERVICES ARCHITECTURE

A video-on-demand server includes interface modules each providing a communication interface between the video-on-demand server and a switching network; an interface to a management module to monitor and provide to the video-on-demand server information on video-on-demand bandwidth utilization of network resources allocated to particular service groups, each service group including video-on-demand customers sharing a same fixed network bandwidth allocation; each interface module communicatively coupled to service groups simultaneously via service gateways; a total bandwidth of the server is an aggregate bandwidth of all the interface modules, and is less than an aggregate bandwidth of all service groups assigned to be serviced by the server, the switching network configured to make the server available for receiving video on demand service requests from all of the service group customers simultaneously; the server adapted to dynamically assign bandwidth of the server to service groups, by adapting the switching network to dynamically change communication connections between interface modules and service groups, the adaptations to the switching network based upon information about the bandwidth utilization of network resources received from the management module.