TY - GEN
T1 - SMOG
T2 - 2012 11th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games, NetGames 2012
AU - Jalaparti, Virajith
AU - Caesar, Matthew
AU - Lee, Seungjoon
AU - Pang, Jeffery
AU - Van Der Merwe, Jacobus
PY - 2012
Y1 - 2012
N2 - Highly interactive network applications such as online games are rapidly growing in popularity but remain challenging for game providers to support, due to their inherent need for low latency. While cloud computing has proven a useful infrastructure for other applications, existing cloud computing facilities are insufficient for games, due to the unpredictability of their workload, their demands on latency and scale, and the need to support game-specific requirements (e.g., players may wish to play with certain other players already in the game). In this work, we explore whether dynamic optimization of latency and scaling of games can be achieved by supplementing cloud computing infrastructure with seamless wide area virtual machine migration using network based route control. We propose SMOG, a framework that dynamically migrates game servers to their optimal location, and uses orchestrated route control to optimize the network path to the server to minimize observable effects of live server migration. Through deployment of a prototype implementation on a Tier-1 ISP's backbone and a user study, we found SMOG can decrease average end-user latency by up to 60% while performing migration in a manner transparent to game players. While this paper's focus is online games, SMOG is general enough to be used for a variety of latency-sensitive interactive applications such as video conferencing and interactive video streaming.
AB - Highly interactive network applications such as online games are rapidly growing in popularity but remain challenging for game providers to support, due to their inherent need for low latency. While cloud computing has proven a useful infrastructure for other applications, existing cloud computing facilities are insufficient for games, due to the unpredictability of their workload, their demands on latency and scale, and the need to support game-specific requirements (e.g., players may wish to play with certain other players already in the game). In this work, we explore whether dynamic optimization of latency and scaling of games can be achieved by supplementing cloud computing infrastructure with seamless wide area virtual machine migration using network based route control. We propose SMOG, a framework that dynamically migrates game servers to their optimal location, and uses orchestrated route control to optimize the network path to the server to minimize observable effects of live server migration. Through deployment of a prototype implementation on a Tier-1 ISP's backbone and a user study, we found SMOG can decrease average end-user latency by up to 60% while performing migration in a manner transparent to game players. While this paper's focus is online games, SMOG is general enough to be used for a variety of latency-sensitive interactive applications such as video conferencing and interactive video streaming.
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UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/citedby.url?scp=84873457729&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1109/NetGames.2012.6404031
DO - 10.1109/NetGames.2012.6404031
M3 - Conference contribution
AN - SCOPUS:84873457729
SN - 9781467345781
T3 - Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games
BT - 2012 11th Annual Workshop on Network and Systems Support for Games, NetGames 2012
Y2 - 22 November 2012 through 23 November 2012
ER -