June , Enterprise Computing Community - ECC 2010 Teaching Middle and High School Students about Enterprise Computing Neal Tanner, Marist College
June , How can we teach kids about enterprise computing? Avoid traditional enterprise computing examples (i.e. financial examples) Relate it to topics they are interested in
June , What are kids interested in that uses enterprise computing? Current generation is an online one Everything they do is online, even research for school (Google, Wikipedia) Even entertainment has an online component
June , What sort of entertainment? Social mediums (IM, Twitter, Facebook) Music and video (iTunes) Games (Nintendo DS, X-Box Live)
June , Which should we focus on? Games are the most prevalent option Many options available, for many different tastes More committed gamers will have played more involved online fare (Call of Duty, World of Warcraft) Casual gamers more likely to have played lighter online fare (Farmville, online card games)
June , Which game do we focus on? Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOGs) make the most use of enterprise computing Popular MMOGs will be better documented and receive more attention Older MMOGs will also be better documented World of Warcraft is the current 800-pound gorilla, and is over 5 years old
June , Why World of Warcraft? It's immensely popular million subscribers worldwide Available on Mac and PC Available in 8 languages Has received extensive coverage in numerous media outlets. The CDC even used it for disease modeling
June , What is World of Warcraft? A Massively Multiplayer Online Game (MMOG) Played in real time online, with many other players Players divided into two factions, to allow for faction conflict Large game world, spanning four continents
June , Game Summary
June , Login Screen
June , Realm Selection - US
June , Realm Selection - EU
June , Character Creation - Human
June , Character Creation - Draenei
June , Character Creation - Tauren
June , Character Selection - Dwarf
June , Character Selection - Orc
June , Game Summary
June , What is a realm? A realm is World of Warcraft's answer to a game server. Realms are actually a collection of multiple servers, called world servers Each continent is its own world server If a world server crashes, the continent and characters on it become inaccessible
June , World Map
June , Loading Screen – Boat or Zeppelin
June , Loading Screen – Northrend
June , Realms – continued Some systems independent of world servers Each character has access to a personal bank and a guild bank from every continent / world server Three independent player-driven auction houses exist. Two are faction specific, one is neutral. This gives each character access to two separate auction houses from multiple continents
June , Realms – continued Players can have 10 characters per realm, 50 characters per account Realms are organized into battlegroups There are approximately 18 – 20 realms per battlegroup In the US, there are 2 – 4 battlegroups per data center, and 4 data centers Realms in the same battlegroup may participate in battlegrounds and dungeons together
June , What about the data centers? 10 data centers worldwide 4 in the US – Washington, California, Texas, Massachusetts 3 in Europe – France, Germany, Sweden 3 in Asia – South Korea, China, Taiwan Uses 20,000 systems, and 1.3 petabytes of storage 13,250 server blades, 75,000 CPU cores, terabytes of RAM
June , What about other games? Many games utilize the realm model, most with fewer features Two other models exist –Instance-based –Node-based
June , What is instance-based architecture? Used primarily by Cryptic Studios for Champions Online and Star Trek Online Each game region runs multiple copies of itself called instances Champions Online has a maximum of 100 characters per instance Star Trek Online has a maximum of 50 characters (ships) per instance
June , What is node-based architecture? Used primarily by Second Life and EVE Online Each game region is a distinct node Nodes in Second Life are called simulators Each simulator has a 40 character (avatar) maximum Each node in EVE Online is a star system. Star systems have no maximum. Hundreds of characters (ships) in one star system at a time is not unusual
June , Do any of these games use mainframes? No, almost all use server blades Servers are typically together in a clustered arrangement One game, a space-based game similar to EVE Online, called Taikodom, developed by Hoplin Infotainment uses a zSeries mainframe
June , Final Thoughts Online games are not the only example of enterprise computing But they may be the most interesting to kids Any questions?