[e2e] Closestnode.com announcement

[Amr A. Awadallah]

Very cool.

Does ClosetNode provide support for finding a server that is closest to 
multiple-clients at same time ?

Specifically, for multiplayer clan matches, suppose there is 16 players 
(8 on each team), and there is 2000 game host servers distributed across 
the world available for hosting the match. Can we find where is the 
closet node to all 16 players such that the ping-differential between 
the players is minimized ? (note that a node that is actually further 
away on average, but reduces the delta between the players is preferred).

The reason ping-differential is so important is to ensure fairness, 
otherwise certain players get the updates from the game server before 
other players (and hence can kill the other players in their future 
before they even see them !)

Thanks,

-- amr

Bernard Wong wrote:

> We are writing to announce closestnode.com, a free, non-commercial 
> service that we have recently deployed for directing clients to servers 
> and peers that are close to them.
> 
> Closestnode.com can be used for mapping clients to the closest DHT node, 
> for selecting a nearby mirror a user can download content from, or for 
> finding the closest game server a user can connect to in multiplayer 
> online games.
> 
> The service is very simple to use:  You register a unique application 
> name with us on the web (e.g. mycoolapp) and either link our library 
> into your application or run our standalone program along your server 
> nodes. Once that is done, any node performing a DNS lookup for 
> mycoolapp.closestnode.com will receive the IP address of the the closest 
> (lowest latency) node to itself that is currently running the mycoolapp 
> application.
> 
> Closestnode.com can be used to implement a generic anycast service. It 
> supports hosts behind firewalls and NAT boxes. One caveat is that a cold 
> lookup with unprimed caches may take up to a few hundred ms, so this 
> system is best suited for distributed systems where sessions last a few 
> seconds or more.
> 
> More information, code and demos are available at 
> http://www.closestnode.com. The system is an offshoot of recent research 
> at Cornell university, described in the following paper:
> 
>      http://www.cs.cornell.edu/people/egs/papers/meridian-sigcomm05.pdf
> 
> Don't hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
> 
> Best,
> Bernard,
> Alex,
> Gun.