Sociality and Self-Organisation in Next-Generation Distributed Environments

Doctoral thesis (2011)

The proliferation of computationally powerful, interconnected devices entails a new generation of networked applications and social utilities characterized by a strong growth in scale and dynamics.<br ... [more ▼]

The proliferation of computationally powerful, interconnected devices entails a new generation of networked applications and social utilities characterized by a strong growth in scale and dynamics.<br />Distributed virtual environments constitute a privileged example, involving a high degree of interactivity as well as tightened constraints and requirements. As a response to these issues, this dissertation explores and substantiates sociality as a fundamental principle both in and for the design of such systems.<br />A specialized, dual peer-to-peer architecture is introduced, combining a highly-structured backbone overlay with a loosely-structured geometric client overlay synergistically complementing each other. To enable a global-scale, single-instanced environment, it is imperative to include as many client-side resources as possible and unburden the backbone. The focus of this dissertation therefore lies upon the latter, geometric overlay.<br />By taking an interdisciplinary perspective and leveraging different aspects of sociality, a series of self-organized approaches addressing major problem areas are proposed: a collaborative filtering mechanism for the handling of information overload created from the soaring amounts of users and objects; a confidentiality framework for the protection of sensitive data more likely exposed due to an increased interactivity; and two resource allocation schemes for fairly distributing surplus capacities in the face of critical regional surges.<br />Detailed evaluations show that these decentralized algorithms operate robustly and effectively, while yielding well-converging results in comparison to optimal, global-knowledge scenarios. [less ▲]

FloRA - Flock-Based Resource Allocation for Decentralized Distributed Virtual Environments

in Proceedings of the 4th International ICST Conference on Simulation Tools and Techniques (SIMUTools) (2011)

HyperVerse: Simulation and Testbed Reconciled

in International Journal of Advanced Media and Communication (2010), 4(2), 167-181

A Self-Organized Resource Allocation Scheme for Decentralized Distributed Virtual Environments

in Proceedings of the 6th International Conference on Collaborative Computing: Networking, Applications and Worksharing (CollaborateCom) (2010)

Fuzzy Logic Supported Consistency Management in DDVEs

in Electronic Communications of the EASST (2009), 17

Epidemic Self-Synchronization in Complex Networks

in Proceedings of the 1st International Conference on Complex Sciences: Theory and Applications (Complex) (2009)

P2P-Based Avatar Interaction in Massive Multiuser Virtual Environments

in Proceedings of the 3rd International Conference on Complex, Intelligent and Software Intensive Systems (CISIS) (2009)

Elastic Consistency in Decentralized Distributed Virtual Environments

in Proceedings of the 4th International Conference on Automated Solutions for Cross Media Content and Multi-channel Distribution (AXMEDIS) (2008)

HiOPS Overlay - Efficient Provision of Multicast in Peer-to-Peer Systems

in Proceedings of the 16th International Conference on Networks (ICON) (2008)

HyperVerse - Towards a Self-Organizing and Sustainable Global-Scale Virtual Environment

in Proceedings of the 4th Microsoft Academic Days (MSAD) (2008)