The impact of virtualisation on the performance and operational costs of Massively Multiplayer Online Games

  • Authors:

  • Alexandru Iosup;Vlad Nae;Radu Prodan

  • Affiliations:

  • Parallel and Distributed Systems Group, Delft University of Technology, Mekelweg 4, 2628CD Delft, The Netherlands.;Institute for Computer Science, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 21a, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria.;Institute for Computer Science, University of Innsbruck, Technikerstrasse 21a, A-6020 Innsbruck, Austria

  • Venue:
  • International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication
  • Year:
  • 2010

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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.