Load Skew in Cell-Based Interest Management Systems

In large, real-time interactive distributed systems such as distributed simulations and multiplayer games, interest management (IM) is often implemented using a cell-based paradigm. In such a paradigm the subscription patterns of interactive clients are mapped on to some set of disjoint regions or cells which are typically hosted within a routing network made up either of dedicated machines or of the clients themselves. These systems often incorporate some mechanism for balancing the load placed on this routing network, on the assumption that interests over this population of cells will be non-uniform. Using a set of reference models for cell-based IM systems found in the research corpus, we evaluate the extent to which this phenomenon takes place. We also evaluate what effects an adaptive algorithm from previous work by Minson, R. and Theodoropoulos, G. (2007) has on this phenomenon.