The impact of virtualisation on the performance and operational costs of Massively Multiplayer Online Games. (12th November 2010)

• Record Type: Journal Article
• Authors: Iosup, Alexandru; Nae, Vlad; Prodan, Radu
• Is Part Of: International journal of advanced media and communication. Volume 4:Number 4(2010)
• Page Start: 364
• Page End: 386
• Publication Date: 2010-11-12
• Subjects: virtualisation impact -- MMOGs -- massively multiplayer online games -- performance -- operational costs -- resource provisioning -- on-demand -- data centres -- cloud computing -- Amazon EC2 -- gaming -- computer games; Multimedia communications -- Periodicals; Multimedia systems -- Periodicals; 384.38
• Languages: English
• ISSNs: 1462-4613

Abstract

To serve millions of players, Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) operators pre-provision and then maintain thousands of computer resources. We investigate a hybrid resource provisioning model that uses smaller and cheaper data centers, complemented during peak hours by virtualised cloud computing resources. Through trace-based simulation and empirical experimentation, we assess the impact of provisioning virtualised cloud resources, analyse the virtualisation overhead, and compare provisioning of virtualised resources with resource ownership. Using a simple cost model, we also investigate the costs of hosting MMOGs on the resources leased independently from three commercial cloud providers, including Amazon.