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Cloud Computing to Support the Evolution of Massive Multiplayer Online Games

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Part of the book series: Communications in Computer and Information Science ((CCIS,volume 220))

Abstract

In these recent years, with the gain in popularity of online games, we are witnessing a progressive increment in the number of massive multiplayer online games available over the Internet. Given the scalability requirements imposed by a huge population of users over an extended length of time, game providers face the major challenge of long-term IT infrastructures dimensioning. In particular, the risks are over-allocation (wasting resource and money) or non-timely upgrades (loosing subscribers and revenues.) In this paper we advocate Cloud Computing as a viable solution to dynamically allocate resource for a massive game service infrastructure in order to satisfy users’ needs while minimizing maintenance costs. To this extent we envision a mid-term future where game provisioning will be performed by means of a three-tier architecture: the users, the game provider, and the cloud provider. We believe that many medium/small game providers may benefit from the on-demand resources allocation infrastructure offered by the cloud, due to shorter deployment time and reduced total cost of ownership.

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© 2011 Springer-Verlag Berlin Heidelberg

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Maggiorini, D., Ripamonti, L.A. (2011). Cloud Computing to Support the Evolution of Massive Multiplayer Online Games. In: Cruz-Cunha, M.M., Varajão, J., Powell, P., Martinho, R. (eds) ENTERprise Information Systems. CENTERIS 2011. Communications in Computer and Information Science, vol 220. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24355-4_11

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-642-24355-4_11

  • Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg

  • Print ISBN: 978-3-642-24354-7

  • Online ISBN: 978-3-642-24355-4

  • eBook Packages: Computer ScienceComputer Science (R0)

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