This master thesis in computer science was performed at Luleå University of
Technology, Sweden, during the fall of 2003, and is a part of a larger
project run by the Swedish game development company Agency9. The company
plans to include a networking module in their complete software suit and
needs to design, implement and evaluate a prototype in order to start the
development process. This thesis evaluates the most common solutions
suitable for implementation into the company software today and compares
chosen solutions in different areas as ease of use and performance.
The master thesis also discusses some issues of scalability in networking
applications used for time critical multimedia distribution. In order to
achieve the specifications and allow further enhancements of the framework,
some commonly used methods of traffic limitation must be implemented in the
prototype.
This thesis describes a general framework called AgentNE, which is a
networking module (middleware) implemented in Java. The framework provides
a clean and simple way to access the Java networking layer in order to
reduce development time. The conclusion of the thesis is that the most
suitable implementation is to implement a combination of currently used
solutions, which provides a framework to further develop the target
applications network capabilities. The thesis also mentions areas in which
the framework needs further work in order to fulfill certain expectations of
developers using commercial networking middleware.
The framework has been tested through prototyping together with Agency9´s
software project MegaCorps Online, which relies exclusively on the AgentNE
to manage its networking functions. MegaCorps Online is an online
en...
