Gamelet: A mobile service component for building multi-server distributed virtual environment on grid

Abstract

A DVE system provides a computer-generated virtual world where individuals located at different places could interact with each other. In this paper, we present the design of a grid-enabled service oriented framework for facilitating the building of DVE systems on Grid. A service component named "gamelet" is proposed. Each gamelet is characterized by its load awareness, high mobility, and embedded synchronization. Based on gamelet, we show how to re-design the existing monopolistic model of a DVE system into an open and service-oriented system that can fit into current Grid/OGSA framework. We also demonstrate an adaptive gamelet load-balancing (AGL) algorithm that helps the DVE system achieve better performance. We evaluate the performance through a multiplayer online game prototype implemented on Globus Toolkit. Results show that our approach can achieve faster response time and higher throughput. © Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg 2004.