Getting real - self-organized resource allocation on second life avatar traces

The expedient design of resource allocation mechanisms, particularly in light of dynamically varying user densities, is an important building block for the provision of peer-to-peer massively multiuser virtual environments. In case of their decentralized operation, a meaningful analysis of a given mechanism is difficult to achieve. The most realistic and convincing way of carrying out an evaluation certainly - if not performed in vivo - is against real data. This paper provides a comparative evaluation of two self-organized resource allocation schemes against Second Life avatar traces. Collected from regions with different usage characteristics, the traces allow for an analysis of the performance and behavior of the individual schemes under real churn and mobility which, so far, have been simulated for assessment. We analyze both the effectiveness of the resource allocation and the respective effects on the topology, concluding some general guidelines for the design of such decentralized mechanisms on geometric overlay networks.