Effects of inter-server communication in an HLA-based distributed virtual environment

Distributed virtual environments (DVEs) are distributed systems that allow multiple geographically distributed users to interact concurrently in a shared virtual world. To achieve good scalability, a multi-server architecture is usually employed as the communication architecture for DVEs. However, there are still several issues in multi-server DVE systems that need to be addressed. One of the key issues is the load distribution mechanism, which aims to maximize system performance by balancing server workload and minimizing inter-server communication. However, recent research on load distribution for DVEs did not quantitatively study how inter-server communication affects the system response time. In this paper, we describe a communication architecture for DVEs based on a combination of the widely used multi-server architecture and the high level architecture (HLA), and study the effect of inter-server communication on system response time with a prototype implementation, using HLA declaration management services. Preliminary experiments and results are also presented.