Cloud for Gaming

Cloud for Gaming refers to the use of cloud computing technologies to build large-scale gaming infrastructures, with the goal of improving scalability and responsiveness, improve the user's experience and enable new business models.Comment: Encyclopedia of Computer Graphics and Games. Newton Lee (Editor). Springer International Publishing, 2015, ISBN 978-3-319-08234-

Towards a Scalable Dynamic Spatial Database System

With the rise of GPS-enabled smartphones and other similar mobile devices, massive amounts of location data are available. However, no scalable solutions for soft real-time spatial queries on large sets of moving objects have yet emerged. In this paper we explore and measure the limits of actual algorithms and implementations regarding different application scenarios. And finally we propose a novel distributed architecture to solve the scalability issues.Comment: (2012

Mobile Online Gaming via Resource Sharing

Mobile gaming presents a number of main issues which remain open. These are concerned mainly with connectivity, computational capacities, memory and battery constraints. In this paper, we discuss the design of a fully distributed approach for the support of mobile Multiplayer Online Games (MOGs). In mobile environments, several features might be exploited to enable resource sharing among multiple devices / game consoles owned by different mobile users. We show the advantages of trading computing / networking facilities among mobile players. This operation mode opens a wide number of interesting sharing scenarios, thus promoting the deployment of novel mobile online games. In particular, once mobile nodes make their resource available for the community, it becomes possible to distribute the software modules that compose the game engine. This allows to distribute the workload for the game advancement management. We claim that resource sharing is in unison with the idea of ludic activity that is behind MOGs. Hence, such schemes can be profitably employed in these contexts.Comment: Proceedings of 3nd ICST/CREATE-NET Workshop on DIstributed SImulation and Online gaming (DISIO 2012). In conjunction with SIMUTools 2012. Desenzano, Italy, March 2012. ISBN: 978-1-936968-47-

Architecting Scalability for Massively Multiplayer Online Gaming Experiences

With this article we want to identify the main scalability issues for the development of Massive Multi-Player Online Games. There is no generic architecture to achieve scalability for every problem. We must understand the nature of the problem in order to reach system scalability. Massive Multi-Player Online Games (MMOG) are conceived with the objective of massive use by a potentially geographically dispersed population. In their design we are faced with scalability challenges which are specific to the interactive modalities and the socio-technical scenarios we intend to enable [Fitch 2001]. The emergence of the Internet made possible the development of interactive distributed systems that can be accessed by thousands of users in virtually any part of the world. The scalability issues introduced by such a massive use must be considered in the system design. By scalability we mean the system fit capacity according to his loading charge, for example, accommodates increasing interaction volume, without significant degradation of quality service. It is commonly known that scalability can’t be secured if we only pay attention to some system parts. To achieve scalability in any kind of distributed system we must design all the components to achieve this goal. For example, a system that has high scalability in the simulation and low communication scalability may result in a poor scalable system, globally. To see the scalability problems in a MMOG we must understand the system dynamics and structure and what’s bound for. Looking at the existent types of MMOG – massive multi-player online role playing games, virtual environments, massive multiplayer real time strategy, massive multiplayer online first-person shooter – we can try to generalize some features that allow us to analyze their scalability requisites. Normally, in this kind of games the action takes place in a virtual 3D environment, where thousands of players interact by controlling avatars, allowing real-time interaction between users in simulated virtual worlds. The action environment can be persistent in order to maintain the notion of space and time continuity [wikipedia 2004]. From an analysis of the characteristics of MMOG systems and their usage we can start to identify four main scalability issues: a) simulation capacity that allows for thousands of players to be online in the same virtual world; b) data storage capacity of all the information that is used to represent the virtual worlds and one efficient distribution method for guaranteeing availability when needed; c) reliable and efficient communications for experience coordination and smooth interaction; d) architectural integration enabling system expansibility through new computational, communication and storage resources. Next we will briefly discuss these issues. The simulation component role in MMOG is to process the events that are generated through the player’s interaction or by sub-systems that generate automatic environmental activities (e.g., atmospheric, AI bots). Besides the high event volume that must be processed, the simulation activity has other challenge: the size of the virtual universe data model. Virtual universe action area can have the size of a planet or even a galaxy, which becomes very complex to handle [Rosedale 2003]. As previously referred, the MMOG environments are commonly 3D and very dynamic, being impossible for the clients to keep the virtual world state. So, when a player enters the virtual world must be given to him all the information necessary to animate that world. This information has two different types: data model that represents abstractly the virtual world; and the necessary multimedia elements needed to visual and sonorous animation. Nature and volume size of multimedia information become the main problem of the distribution system [Yu-Shen 1997]. Communication scalability is one of the essential issues in simulated real-time games through Internet. Scalability must be understood not only by the capacity to support communication between a high numbers of players, but also, as the capacity to maintain a communication performance level that doesn’t put at risk the game experience quality. This fact in the MMOG systems is paradigmatic, since there are possible thousand of players interacting with the world objects and moving in the same space. Objects state and players activity must be informed to all players in order to maintain the game integrity/consistency [Smed 2001]. Structural scalability is important to increase the system live span. In order to achieve this requisite the system structure must be designed to enable the addition of new resources. Architectural scalability, through the specification of clear system components that interact in a clear dynamics, through defined protocols, is a pre-requisite for system repairing, actualization and evolution; and must also have the capacity to integrate significantly contribute to the later incorporation of new technologies and devices. At first glance, we would think that to achieve scalability in MMOG implementations we would simply have to work on an architectural design to satisfy all the requisites that have been presented. But that would not be enough. System scalability also emerges from the balance and harmony of the system components. When we are trying to satisfy some requisite, the ideal solution may be in conflict with some other requisite. For example, the best solution for the distribution of static content (such as 3D models, textures and sounds) can jeopardize communication scalability for more immediate real-time events, as their compete for the available bandwidth. The best solution may not be the optimal one for any system component, but the best overall solution for the integrated system, that guarantees an adequate level of quality to the interactive experience. In order to achieve such a balance we have to consider an adequate partitioning of responsibilities for the components and the internal and the external dynamics that are originated

Using High-Rising Cities to Visualize Performance in Real-Time

For developers concerned with a performance drop or improvement in their software, a profiler allows a developer to quickly search and identify bottlenecks and leaks that consume much execution time. Non real-time profilers analyze the history of already executed stack traces, while a real-time profiler outputs the results concurrently with the execution of software, so users can know the results instantaneously. However, a real-time profiler risks providing overly large and complex outputs, which is difficult for developers to quickly analyze. In this paper, we visualize the performance data from a real-time profiler. We visualize program execution as a three-dimensional (3D) city, representing the structure of the program as artifacts in a city (i.e., classes and packages expressed as buildings and districts) and their program executions expressed as the fluctuating height of artifacts. Through two case studies and using a prototype of our proposed visualization, we demonstrate how our visualization can easily identify performance issues such as a memory leak and compare performance changes between versions of a program. A demonstration of the interactive features of our prototype is available at https://youtu.be/eleVo19Hp4k.Comment: 10 pages, VISSOFT 2017, Artifact: https://github.com/sefield/high-rising-city-artifac

Bipartite electronic SLA as a business framework to support cross-organization load management of real-time online applications

Online applications such as games and e-learning applications fall within the broader category of real-time online interactive applications (ROIA), a new class of ‘killer’ application for the Grid that is being investigated in the edutain@grid project. The two case studies in edutain@grid are an online game and an e-learning training application. We present a novel Grid-based business framework that makes use of bipartite service level agreements (SLAs) and dynamic invoice models to model complex business relationships in a massively scalable and flexible way. We support cross-organization load management at the business level, through zone migration. For evaluation we look at existing and extended value chains, the quality of service (QoS) metrics measured and the dynamic invoice models that support this work. We examine the causal links from customer quality of experience (QoE) and service provider quality of business (QoBiz) through to measured quality of service. Finally we discuss a shared reward business ecosystem and suggest how extended service level agreements and invoice models can support this