IBM details online gaming platform

To create what the company said is a ‘blazingly’ fast and powerful hybrid platform containing security features designed to handle a new generation of virtual world applications such as the 3D Internet, IBM http://www.ibm.com detailed today a project that

Big Blue said the project leverages the mainframe’s ability to accelerate work via specialty processors, as well as its unique networking architecture, which allows the ultra-fast communication needed to create virtual worlds with millions of simultaneous users sharing a single universe.

Drawing on its research, software and hardware units, IBM explained that the project is being conducted with Florianopolis, Brazil-based online gaming supplier Hoplon Infotainment http://www.hoplon.com whose software is a key component of testing the capabilities of the new environment.

Jim Stallings, general manager for IBM System z said in a statement, “As online environments increasingly incorporate aspects of virtual reality – including 3D graphics and lifelike, meaningful real-time interaction among many simultaneous users – companies of all types will need a computing platform that can handle a broad spectrum of demanding performance and security requirements. To serve this market, the Cell/B.E. processor, which powers the Sony PLAYSTATION 3, is the perfect complement to the mainframe, the only server designed to handle millions of simultaneous users.”

IBM said the project intends to create an environment that can seamlessly run demanding simulations including massive online virtual reality environments, 3D applications for mapping, enterprise resource planning and customer relationship management, 3D virtual stores and meeting rooms, collaboration environments and new types of data repositories – all through parceling the workload between the mainframe and the Cell processor.

In the collaboration between mainframe and Cell/B.E., Cell/B.E. will handle the complex simulation associated with operating in virtual worlds – for example, a ball thrown in a virtual reality world must obey the laws of gravity, IBM noted.

To that end, IBM said it and Hoplon are porting Hoplon software to the Cell/B.E. for message passing and physics simulation, and have already created a programming model and messaging architecture that separates the application running on the system.

The mainframe will run Hoplon’s industry-specific middleware for virtual worlds, called bitVerse, currently under development using WebSphere XD as the underlying runtime environment, along with DB2.

Finally, the mainframe will run the administrative tasks for the middleware and the applications, handle logistics such as billing, along with connectivity to third parties and multiple clients, which might include PCs, consoles, mobile phones, music players, TVs, and other devices.