As computer hardware is constantly being updated, replaced, and upgraded, mobile game battlefields are gradually becoming more intensive. Multiplayer real-time competition games are a typical example of these resource demanding games. These games place a great deal of pressure on back-end servers and pose unprecedented challenges to network stability.
Alibaba Cloud has a cloud computing platform to address the needs and challenges faced by Multi-Player Online Battle Arena (MOBA) games. This solution provides the following advantages:
High Network Throughput Capacity Requirements
High Network Throughput Capacity
Games with many players online simultaneously, PVP battlefield games and other such graphic intensive scenarios are primary examples of games with high network throughput requirements. Packet broadcasting results in high PPS loads. In addition, the restrictions on the network throughput capacities of individual servers, especially their PPS capacities, causes significant latency, packet loss, and other problems.
The Alibaba Cloud platform uses high-performance hardware infrastructure and an optimized and upgraded network layer. Alibaba Cloud ECS, at its highest performance, can support a PPS of several hundreds of thousands and provide Gbps-level network throughput capacity.
Low Latency Requirements
Guaranteed Low Latency
Due to the real-time competition feature of MOBA games, real-time battles on the same screen and data exchange require a low level of network latency. As developers wish to provide a fair combat environment and outstanding user experience to players in different regions and network environments, they naturally have higher requirements for network operators' coverage and transmission speeds.
In dedicated game clusters, multiple services are deployed in the same region to achieve a data transmission latency between applications of milliseconds or less. All data centers in different zones of the same city run on bare fiber direct connections. This ensures that, during deployment or disaster recovery, inter-ECS access between different areas in the same city will have a low latency. Cross-region data centers are all interconnected through the Alibaba Cloud high-speed transmission network. This can ensure data transmission stability while reducing the access latency between cross-region ECS, forming a distributed architecture for multiplayer real-time game deployment.
Elastic Resource Scalability Requirements
Elastic Resource Scalability
The uncertain number of online gamers makes it difficult to predict resource allocation, especially during the online events and peak periods after game releases. Momentary access pressure may easily exceed the system's maximum load capacity, while constantly maintaining a high resource configuration will certainly lead to a massive waste of resources. Therefore, flexible and automatic elastic scalability is extremely important.
Alibaba Cloud's multiple services, including ECS and ApsaraDB for RDS, all support vertical configuration upgrade and horizontal extension. Combined with the ESS to enable automatic horizontal scaling based on service load conditions, this solution meets the needs of dynamic resource adjustment at different business stages.
Server Single Point of Failure Problems
Downtime Migration and Hot Migration
Single point of failure is a typical problem for vertical deployment architecture. In the case that a single sever goes down, service may become unavailable in at least one region. The time required to restore the server has a direct effect on user experience, financial flow, and even user retention. Restricted by development conditions, code inheritance, costs and other factors, the vast majority of games still follow this outdated deployment model.
The ECS provides a mechanism of automatic downtime migration protection against sudden exceptions, allowing for the rapid restoration of applications and data. In addition, the server also supports proactive hot migration protection based on the underlying monitoring and alarm mechanism.
Cross-Region Deployment Requirements
Superior Resources and Multiple Data Center Coverage
In order to enhance the user experience and implement nearby access for users, deploying WAR packages in data centers throughout the country is obviously the best approach. However, when developers wish to adopt cross-region deployment for individual zones or servers, they face the problem of ensuring data exchange stability and transmission speeds between WAR servers and central servers in multiple data centers.
Alibaba Cloud's multiline BGP network enables developers to deliver multi-operator line coverage, ensuring the quality of access experience for gamers. Alibaba Cloud's high-speed transmission network can support a multi-regional distributed deployment architecture, giving gamers nearby access and further enhancing the gaming experience.
