Abstract

The development of resource-intensive, distributed, real-time applications like Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) backends entails a variety of challenges, some of which have been extensively studied. Despite some advancements, the development and deployment of MMOG backends on commodity clouds and high-level computing layers continues to face several obstacles, including a non-standardized development methodology, lack of provisions for scalability, and the need for abstractions and tools to support the development process. In this paper, we describe a set of models, methods, and tools for developing scalable MMOG backends and hosting them on commodity cloud platforms. We present Athlos, a framework that allows game developers to leverage our methodology to rapidly prototype MMOG backends that can run on any type of cloud environment. We evaluate this framework by conducting simulations based on several case-study MMOGs to benchmark its performance and scalability, and compare the development effort needed, and quality of the code produced with other approaches. We find that MMOGs developed using this framework: (a) can support a very high number of simultaneous players under a given latency threshold, (b) elastically scale both in terms of runtime and state, and (c) significantly reduce the amount of effort required to develop them. Coupled with the advantages of high-level computing layers such as Platform, Backend, and Function-as-a-Service, we argue that our framework accelerates the development of high-performance, scalable MMOGs, that leverage the resources of commodity cloud platforms.

Highlights

  • The unprecedented availability of computing power provided by cloud computing technology has led to a drive towards its adoption by organizations and individuals alike [1]

  • We aim to provide a language-agnostic, approachindependent game model that supports the development of Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) backends on the cloud and envision that this will allow developers to utilize existing code that implements various game features without the need to start working from scratch to realize scalable MMOG backends

  • We described the models, methods, and tools with which scalable MMOG backends can be developed for and deployed on commodity cloud platforms

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Summary

Introduction

The unprecedented availability of computing power provided by cloud computing technology has led to a drive towards its adoption by organizations and individuals alike [1]. For businesses, the cost-effectiveness of this technology distinguishes it among other options and has made cloud computing a popular option for hosting enterprise applications, especially at the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) layer [2]. The ever-increasing drive to migrate services to the cloud stems from its relative cost-effectiveness, and from the ability to innovate and optimize business processes, especially those related to mobile and web technologies [3]. The services provided by such applications are often optimized for throughput and parallel execution, which makes them easy to scale due to a limited need for synchronization when accessing resources [4]. The logic behind the services provided by such applications can be migrated to either a private or public cloud

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