An Event Distribution Model for Interoperable Distributed Virtual Environments and Its Evaluation

Abstract

This paper discusses a model for event distribution in which several distributed virtual environment systems, provided by Internet service providers (ISP), can be interoperable, and analyzes its dynamic characteristics. Each ISP has a server that manages a virtual world called scene. The interoperability is realized by connecting these servers. Each client has a connection to a predetermined server. When a client is connected to a server and its user belongs to some other server's scene, the former server plays a role of proxy between the client and the latter server. We have clarified the processing mechanism of servers for event distribution and have analyzed its dynamic characteristics using the queuing system theory. As a result, we have obtained an equation to show the limitation ofserver's scalability in terms of each user's event occurrence rate. The validity of the equation has been confirmed by the comparison to a computer simulation result.