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SLA-based operation of massively multiplayer online games in competition-based environments

Published: 10 July 2013 Publication History

Abstract

To sustain the variable load of Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) with guaranteed Quality of Service (QoS), game operators over-provision a static infrastructure capable of sustaining the peak load, even though a large portion of the resources is unused most of the time. This inefficient way of provisioning resources has negative impacts, leading to inefficient resource utilisation, high service prices, and limited market participation accessible only to the large companies. We propose a new ecosystem and model for hosting and operating MMOGs based on cloud computing principles involving four smaller and better focused business actors whose interaction is regulated through Service Level Agreements (SLAs): resource provider, game operator, game provider, and client. In our model, game providers lease operation SLAs from the game operators to satisfy all client requests and manage multiple distributed MMOG sessions. In turn, game operators efficiently lease on-demand cloud resources based on the dynamic MMOG load and ensure proper game operation that maintains QoS to all clients. In this paper, we focus on the business interaction between the game provider and the game operator by defining the SLA terms and the underlying negotiation protocol, including a model for compensations for QoS violations. We propose a method for ranking operational offers based on price, compensation and resource fitness, and study its impact on game provider's profit in an environment with several providers competing for SLAs from multiple game operators.

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Cited By

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  • (2019)Trust Evaluation in Cross-Cloud FederationACM Computing Surveys10.1145/329249952:1(1-37)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2019
  • (2018)Management of Service Level Agreements for Cloud Services in IoT: A Systematic Mapping StudyIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2017.27446776(30184-30207)Online publication date: 2018
  • (2015)Operation analysis of massively multiplayer online games on unreliable resourcesPeer-to-Peer Networking and Applications10.1007/s12083-015-0383-69:6(1145-1161)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2015
  • Show More Cited By

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cover image ACM Other conferences
C3S2E '13: Proceedings of the International C* Conference on Computer Science and Software Engineering
July 2013
155 pages
ISBN:9781450319768
DOI:10.1145/2494444
Permission to make digital or hard copies of all or part of this work for personal or classroom use is granted without fee provided that copies are not made or distributed for profit or commercial advantage and that copies bear this notice and the full citation on the first page. Copyrights for components of this work owned by others than ACM must be honored. Abstracting with credit is permitted. To copy otherwise, or republish, to post on servers or to redistribute to lists, requires prior specific permission and/or a fee. Request permissions from [email protected]

Sponsors

  • Concordia University: Concordia University
  • ISEP-IPP: Polytechnic Institute of Porto / ISEP

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Association for Computing Machinery

New York, NY, United States

Publication History

Published: 10 July 2013

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Author Tags

  1. MMOG
  2. QoS
  3. SLA
  4. business services
  5. cloud computing

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  • Research-article

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C3S2E13
Sponsor:
  • Concordia University
  • ISEP-IPP

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C3S2E '13 Paper Acceptance Rate 12 of 42 submissions, 29%;
Overall Acceptance Rate 12 of 42 submissions, 29%

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Cited By

View all
  • (2019)Trust Evaluation in Cross-Cloud FederationACM Computing Surveys10.1145/329249952:1(1-37)Online publication date: 13-Feb-2019
  • (2018)Management of Service Level Agreements for Cloud Services in IoT: A Systematic Mapping StudyIEEE Access10.1109/ACCESS.2017.27446776(30184-30207)Online publication date: 2018
  • (2015)Operation analysis of massively multiplayer online games on unreliable resourcesPeer-to-Peer Networking and Applications10.1007/s12083-015-0383-69:6(1145-1161)Online publication date: 4-Jul-2015
  • (2014)Comparison of Static and Dynamic Resource Allocations for Massively Multiplayer Online Games on Unreliable ResourcesRevised Selected Papers, Part I, of the Euro-Par 2014 International Workshops on Parallel Processing - Volume 880510.1007/978-3-319-14325-5_26(299-310)Online publication date: 25-Aug-2014

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