Institute For The Future

Peer-to-Peer Infrastructure for Virtual Worlds:

Technology Review reports today on VastPark, a new Australian startup that is taking a peer-to-peer approach to managing load in virtual worlds. Seems like an interesting alternative to central servers or pre-distributing graphics, but I'll be curious to see if it stands up to the test of real world swarms:

 

 

The typical network architecture for virtual worlds, Kulkarni says, involves central servers that control all the information flowing to and from the clients installed on users' computers. Some virtual-world architectures, such as that of Linden Lab's Second Life, stream all the information about the world from those central servers, including information about 3-D content, along with information about the position of the user's avatar. Other architectures, such as that of the Multiverse network, separate information about the look of the world from information about how avatars are interacting. Display information gets distributed with client software and stored on users' computers, reducing the amount of information that needs to pass through the central server on a regular basis. Kulkarni says that NICTA's system reduces the infrastructure required by the company hosting the world because, while the company can still run a central server that distributes client software and contains information about 3-D content, peer-to-peer networks can handle information about avatar position and character interaction.