Web Browser Network Based on a BA Model for a Web-Based Virtual World

Abstract

Real-time web applications such as a virtual world require considerable computing resources. However, as the number of servers increases, so does the maintenance and financial cost. To share tasks among web browsers, the browsers must share data. Therefore, a network must be constructed among the web browsers. In this paper, we propose the construction of a web browser network based on the Barabasi–Albert model (BA model). We focus on a web-based multiplayer online game that requires higher frequent communication and significant computing resources. We attempt to optimize computing resource utilization for web browsers. We improve upon the method in our previous study, which constructed a network for a web-based virtual world, using only location information. When a new user logged into a world, the web browser connected to two other browsers whose users had a location close to that of the user. The experimental results of that method showed 50% data coverage, which was insufficient to display the game screen because the web browser displays the characters on the virtual world. In this study, we attempt to use the BA model to construct more efficient networks than those in the previous study to increase data coverage. Our new method uses the number of connections of the web browser and location information to calculate the probability of web browser selection. The experimental results show that the data coverage exceeds 90%, indicating significant improvement over the previous method.