User:Finrod Meriman/Scalability: Difference between revisions

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New page: == Some thoughts on scalability == ''DRAFT'' In the kickoff meeting of the Architecture Working Group Zero presented several scalability objectives: a platform that could support 60 mill...
 
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== Some thoughts on scalability ==


''DRAFT''
In the kickoff meeting of the Architecture Working Group Zero presented
several scalability objectives: a platform that could support 60 million
regions, 2 billion total users, and 50 million concurrently connected
users. These objectives reflect Zero's frequently stated intention to
"instill a deep sense of platform" in the AWG.
One way to achieve the desired scalability objectives is to create a
large number of independently hosted regions. As proof, consider how the
current Web scales: any organization (or individual for that matter) can
run an HTTP server and publish content. As of October 2007 Netcraft
reports more than 140 million web servers surveyed on the public
Internet (with countless additional servers deployed inside corporate
firewalls). Scalability of the Web occurs largely because each server is
independent of others.
Although Second Life could scale to meet Zero's targets by creating a
number of independent regions (or a large number of independent copies
of Second Life itself), there are implicit objectives that affect
scalability as well.
* The number of regions that share a common set of user identities
In the Web every organization typically implements an identity service
to track its customers; e.g. I have distinct accounts at web sites
hosted by Amazon, Ebay, ESPN, and CNN. Multiple attempts have been made
to federate identity across multiple sites with relatively little
success. In contrast, wireless carriers have established roaming
agreements that tie customer billing records together across multiple
domains; my identity as stored in my SIM card enables the carrier
hosting my roaming cell phone to bill my primary carrier for the minutes
I use.
The extent to which my identity scales (that is, the number of regions
over which my identity is known) will determine the extent to which my
avatar can move transparently among regions. (And by the way, this is
really hard.)
* The number of users that can concurrently share a single region
The number of concurrent users in a single region (sim) right now is
less than 100 (much less for practical use). Scaling the number of
concurrent users opens the potential for many new applications including
concerts, conferences, business meetings and large sporting events.
If we generalize the notion of "concurrent users in a region" to mean
the number of users that can interact with each other at a single event,
then it becomes a bit easier to define the expected behavior. If
fifty-thousand people attend a baseball game, they all watch the same
game, they see each other, they share a common interest in the outcome
of the game, and operate within the same space. The shared social
experience is what differentiates interactions in a virtual world from a
simple webcast. However, rich social interactions generally only occur
with others who are nearby. Scaling the number of users at an event can
leverage user expectations to maintain a reasonable experience.
Early "large" Web events like coverage of the 1998 Winter Olympics in
Nagano enabled literally millions of people worldwide to remotely
"participate" in the event (just a reminder: that was only five years
after the Mosaic was launched). What would it take to scale a virtual
world to handle that kind of traffic?
* The number and complexity of objects in a region
* The complexity of behavior of objects
How many objects can have scripts? What can scripts control about
objects? How difficult is it to define new behaviors?

Latest revision as of 11:42, 16 February 2015

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