Consistency-aware scheduling and load balancing in multi-server distributed virtual environments

Abstract

A distributed virtual environment (DVE) is a kind of distributed interactive application which allows a group of participants connected via a network to interact with a shared application state. DVEs have been widely used in many areas such as military training, collaborative design, e-learning and networked multiuser games. Zone-based multi-server DVEs (MSDVEs) have been shown to have good scalability to support a large population of users. The fundamental goal of a DVE is to create a consistent view of the virtual world among participants. However, resource saturations may occur at servers due to huge resource demand and imbalanced workload distribution. Foremost I would like to express my sincere gratitude to my supervisor Prof. Cai Wentong for his guidance, support, enthusiasm, and immense knowledge. He patiently provided the vision, encouragement and advice necessary for me to proceed through the doctorial program and complete my thesis. I gratefully acknowledge the scholarship towards my PhD from Nanyang Technological University. Also, I wish to thank my friends in PDCC and Singapore for giving me the laughter, joy, and support in the tough PhD life. I wish our friendship last forever. Last but not the least, I would like to thank my proud family, my parents, my elders, my brothers and my sisters for their infinite support throughout everything.