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Cloud-Based Virtual World PlatformsEric Hackathorn1, Brandon Lynge1

1NOAA Earth System Research Laboratory, Boulder, Coloradohttp://hackshaven.com/opensim/

What is “Cloud Computing?”

What are the pros and cons?

What is “OpenSim?” Cost Comparison

Contact information

325 Broadway R/GSD6Boulder, CO 80305

T: (303) 497-6831E: virual.worlds@noaa.gov

A Potential Future

NOAA’s Virtual Worlds Programhttp://hackshaven.com/opensim/

Region Servers

• Virtual Land• User Frontend

Grid Services

• Authentication• Communications• Inventory

Database

• Persistent Storage

• MySQL

Client Applications

Database

Client Login

User

Grid

Asset

Inventory

Messaging

Region

Region

Region

Region

Grid Services Land Servers

It is designed to be easily expanded through the use of plug-in modules and several modified distributions exist, such as realXtend. Additional plug-ins can be found on the OpenSimulator Forge. In addition, multiple servers can be integrated into a “grid” that allows larger more complex areas to be simulated. In grid mode, responsibilities are divided among six servers: the user server, the grid server, the asset server, the inventory server, the messaging server, and the region server(s).

Cloud computing is Internet-based computing, where shared resources, software, and information are provided to customers on-demand,

Linden Lab OpenSimulator Provider

OpenSimulator Self-Hosted

Upfront Cost 700 0-150 0

Ongoing Cost 147 50-75 45-70

One Year TOTAL* $2,464 $600-$1,050 $540-$840*Represents educational pricing for one standard 256x256 meter region. (USD)

http://code.google.com/p/cablebeach/

like a public utility. It typically involves the provision of dynamically scalable and often virtualized resources as a service over the Internet. In general, cloud computing customers do not own their own physical infrastructure and avoid capital expenditure by renting usage from a third party. For this project, we leveraged Amazon Web Services, along with “RightScale” as an “infrastructure as a service” cloud offering.

Top Cloud Advantages

Traditional IT infrastructure requires large capital expenditures and has a difficult time matching customer demand. This results in inefficient utilization.

Cloud infrastructure scales and shrinks according to real-time demand leading to high efficiency and minimizing unnecessary expenditures.

OpenSimulator, often referred to as OpenSim, is an open source platform for hosting virtual worlds. While it is most recognized for compatibility with the Second Life client, it is also capable of hosting alternative worlds with differing feature sets with multiple protocols.

In the future, virtual worlds likely will be modeled after the current World Wide Web, with millions of independent administrative domains. A rich community of value added services and the free and open exchange of content will weave the network together, much as the Web 2.0 movement is tying the web together today. Every organization can choose what services they will run themselves, what services will be provided by third parties, and which third parties will provide services. Additionally, the content rights decisions are placed in the hands of the content hosts. With the proper authentication, users are free to move assets to wherever they roam. Data services will become as important as data hosting itself. Just as search engines and content portals have changed how we use the web, services that can plug into a common interface in asset hosting will change how we use virtual worlds. Auditing services can provide an approach to rights management and traffic analytics. Existing caching techniques and services that have been built for today's web content can be leveraged for delivery of rich virtual world content.

Eucalyptus

Public Cloud Services

Xen KVM VMWare

Management Console

The barriers to entry for creating and running a virtual world are still high. Even with popular platforms such as OpenSimulator, grid administrators assume the monumental task of overseeing many or all of the above services when only a simple world simulation is needed. This all-or-nothing approach prevents the development of a robust virtual world ecosystem. Today's large stakeholders in content hosting, content delivery acceleration, identity services, and social networking face difficult entrance barriers due to the walled garden nature of current worlds.

Top Cloud Concerns

Privileged user access Sensitive data processed outside the enterprise brings with it an inherent level of risk, because outsourced services bypass the "physical, logical and personnel controls" IT shops exert over in-house programs.

Regulatory compliance Customers are ultimately responsible for the security and integrity of their own data, even when it is held by a service provider.

Data location When you use the cloud, you probably won't know exactly where your data is hosted. In fact, you might not even know what country it will be stored in.

Data segregation Data in the cloud is typically in a shared environment alongside data from other customers. Encryption is effective but isn't a cure-all.

Recovery Even if you don't know where your data is, a cloud provider should tell you what will happen to your data and service in case of a disaster.

Investigative support Investigating inappropriate or illegal activity may be impossible in cloud.

Long-term viability Ideally, your cloud computing provider will never go broke or get acquired and swallowed up by a larger company. But you must be sure your data will remain available even after such an event.

Why use OpenSim?

http://www.rightscale.com/

Customizable Login Screen Mesh-based Content

“Virtual Hawaii”

Cheap Land!

One key advantage of OpenSimulator over many virtual world platforms is the ability to define organization specific term of services, end-user licensing agreements, and covenant needs. Organizations are not limited to 3rd party terms regarding how they can use the virtual world service since everything about the environment is defined internally.

The tables above do not include salary for the technical administration on the self-hosted solution. In many projects, salary represents the largest single expenditure. However, the time it takes to successfully manage OpenSimulator shortens significantly once a technician is familiar with the technology. In addition as demonstrated above, there is an economy of scale when running a larger grid.

Linden Lab OpenSimulator Provider

OpenSimulator Self Hosted

Upfront Cost 700 (x16) 0-150 (x16) 0 (x16)

Ongoing Cost 147 (x16) 50-75 (x16) 45-70 (x16)

One Year TOTAL* $13,552 $800-$3,600 $720-$1,120*Represents educational pricing for sixteen standard 256x256 meter regions. (USD)

http://www.hypergridbusiness.com/2010/04/educators-save-money-switching-to-opensim/

OpenSim Cloud Architecture

http://www.infoworld.com/d/security-central/gartner-seven-cloud-computing-security-risks-853

RightScale Management Console

At this time, demand for a government hosted OpenSimulator solution is minimal. However, thanks to cloud computing the operational cost is close to zero. In the future, this project could quickly respond to increased customer demand.

For this project we chose to use RightScale an umbrella service for cloud computing that allows clients to develop an application once and deploy it to multiple infrastructures. Even with minimal knowledge of cloud architectures, it was possible to take advantage of pre-packaged solutions for common application scenarios to get up and running quickly. This allowed for more focus on OpenSimulator rather than the underlying infrastructure.In addition, through the use of Eucalyptus it is possible to extend this solution into a hybrid private-public cloud infrastructure. This strategy alleviates many of the security concerns surrounding cloud infrastructure.

http://www.eucalyptus.com/

Architecture Diagram

Block Diagram

http://opensimulator.org/wiki/Main_Page