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This paper demonstrates that it is possible to obtain good, scalable parallel performance by coordinating multiple instances of unaltered sequential computational algebra systems in order to deliver a single parallel system. The paper presents the first substantial parallel performance results for SymGrid-Par, a system that orchestrates computational algebra components into a high-performance parallel application. We show that SymGrid-Par is capable of exploiting different parallel/multicore architectures without any change to the computational algebra component. Ultimately, our intention is to extend our system so that it is capable of orchestrating heterogeneous computations across a high-performance computational grid.

We present the design, implementation and evaluation of Deadline-Driven Auctions (DDAs), a novel task-mapping infrastructure for heterogeneous distributed environments. DDA is primarily designed for hosting Non-Player Characters (NPCs) in P2P Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs). Experimental and analytical results demonstrate that DDA provides four significant advantages. It is self-organising: the infrastructure is automatically managed. It efficiently allocates computing resources for large numbers (1000s) of real-time NPC tasks. It supports gaming interactivity by minimising communication latency between NPC hosts. Finally, it supports flexible matchmaking policies, and a friendly incentive policy establishes a cooperative economic model to motivate participants to contribute resources.

Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) are increasing in both popularity and scale, and while classical Client/Server (C/S) architectures convey some benefits, they suffer from significant technical and commercial drawbacks. This realisation has sparked intensive research interest in adapting MMOGs to Peer-to-Peer (P2P) architectures. This paper articulates a comprehensive set of six design issues to be addressed by P2P MMOGs, namely Interest Management (IM), game event dissemination, Non-Player Character (NPC) host allocation, game state persistency, cheating mitigation and incentive mechanisms. Design alternatives for each issue are systematically compared, and their interrelationships discussed. We further evaluate how well representative P2P MMOG architectures fulfil the design criteria.