On The Study of Establishing a Responsive Infrastructure for a Massively Multiplayer On-Line Game

A massively multiplayer online game (MMOG) often requires a game publisher to deploy dozens or hundreds of n-tiered servers to support millions of concurrent players around the world. Planning such a massive network infrastructure, particularly in an environment where uncertain demand and limited server capacity could cause congestions in a host site and the network, poses a great challenge. A slow response time stemming from an ill-designed infrastructure could render an otherwise technically superior MMOG noncompetitive in the marketplace. In this study, we focus on three critical issues related to establishing an MMOG server infrastructure: selecting host facilities on a broadband provider’s backbone network nodes, assigning client clusters represented by the Point of Presences (PoPs) to these MMOG facilities, and determining the required capacity for each host site. The problem is first formulated as a non-linear integer program based on an M/M/1 queuing system in each host facility. We then develop an exact solution approach obtained from solving a minimum cost set-covering problem. The efficiency of the solution approach is also reported

An efficient algorithm to solve base station location and channel assignment problems in a cellular network

Call blockage may incur large losses in areas prone to traffic accidents. We formulate an optimisation problem that chooses base station locations and assign channels to them so as to minimise the overall installation and call blockage costs. Since this problem is a difficult non-linear integer program, we develop an efficient algorithm that finds the optimal solution. The paper features the so-called demand areas that characterise the demand for service of a large number of itinerant cell phone users travelling over a geographic area.facility location models; minimum cost covering location; nonlinear integer programming; wireless networks; channel allocation; base station location; cellular networks; call blockage; cell phones; mobile phones.

A location-allocation problem for a web services provider in a competitive market

Web Services have become a viable component technology in distributed e-commerce platforms. Due to the move to high-speed Internet communication and tremendous increases in computing power, network latency has begun to play a more important role in determining service response time. Hence, the locations of a Web Services provider's facilities, customer allocation, and the number of servers at each facility have a significant impact on its performance and customer satisfaction. In this paper we introduce a location-allocation model for a Web Services provider in a duopoly competitive market. Demands for services of these servers are available at each node of a network, and a subset of nodes is to be chosen to locate one or more servers in each. The objective is to maximize the provider's profit. The problem is formulated and analyzed. An exact solution approach is developed and the results of its efficiency are reported.Web Services Competitive facility location models Nonlinear integer programming