Massively multi-user online platform for large-scale applications

Many large-scale online applications enable thousands of users to access their services simultaneously. However, the overall service quality of an online application usually degrades when the number of users increases because, traditionally, centralized server architecture does not scale well. In order to provide better Quality of Service (QoS), service architecture such as Grid computing can be used. This type of architecture offers service scalability by utilizing heterogeneous hardware resources. In this thesis, a novel design of Grid computing middleware, Massively Multi-user Online Platform (MMOP), which integrates the Peer-to-Peer (P2P) structured overlays, is proposed. The objectives of this proposed design are to offer scalability and system design flexibility, simplify development processes of distributed applications, and improve QoS by following specified policy rules. A Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) has been created to validate the functionality and performance of MMOP. The simulation results have demonstrated that MMOP is a high performance and scalable servicing and computing middleware.