Online gaming is characterised by the high rate of interaction between the users, requiring very fast updates of information being passed from one computer to another. At present, online games run in a static way that is dependant upon tight coupling of computer resources that are usually not adequately flexible to deal with large fluctuations in the number of players. Edutain@Grid seeks to meet these challenges through development of a grid-based framework, allowing responsive and interactive applications to exploit technology that has previously been applied to "big science".

The distinctive features of the framework will be:

• Huge, stable user concurrency that allows thousands of players to participate in highly dynamic online gaming not currently offered in the marketplace;
• Responsive, real-time interaction among collaborating, competing, and cheating users;
• Easy-to-develop, sophisticated, interactive real-time applications;
• Resilient and robust Quality of Service;
• Novel Business-to-Consumer market models;
• Easy-to-configure, user-friendly security models.

The Edutain@Grid framework will offer unprecedented freedom of action, entertainment, adventure, training, etc. to the end-users in a virtual world of unique dimensions, on top of scalable and dynamic use of computer grid resources. Facilitating rapid uptake of Edutain@Grid, the technology will be designed to be generic, scalable, and secure in nature. This will be achieved by providing sophisticated grid middleware services, distributed real-time computation, and easy-to-configure user portals.

The objective will be to allow both established grid users and new applications developers to make use of this new technology at minimal cost. At present, this has not been achieved in the marketplace and therefore has the potential to stimulate a whole new community of developers, service providers, and end-users.

Within the Edutain@Grid project, two demonstrator applications will be developed and validated, including an online multi-player game and a multi-user eLearning application in counter-pollution (natural environment). The project seeks to meet the broader market needs through two user groups that will help define the requirements. Membership will be selected from a range of organisations that represent key potential user groups.