Discover how mobile game companies are leveraging AWS to build cost-effective, scalable games. Learn how companies like Supercell are using EC2 and S3 to run their online game servers. Understand the challenges in scaling game databases, and how developers like Halfbrick use DynamoDB to overcome these demands. Learn how you can use the new EC2 G2 and C3 instances to run multiplayer games in the cloud. Finally, see how developers like Rovio are using SNS to send mobile push notifications to keep players engaged.

1. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Scalable Gaming with AWS
Or, How to go from 1,000 to 1,000,000 users without starting over
Nate Wiger @nateware | Principal Gaming Solutions Architect

2. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
What's In It For Me?
• Why AWS for Games?
• Core Game Backend
• Scaling Data with DynamoDB
• Low-Latency Multiplayer with C3
• Mobile Push Notifications

3. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Gratuitous Logo Slide

4. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Traditional: Rigid AWS: Elastic
Servers
Demand
Capacity
Excess Capacity
Wasted $$
Demand
Unmet Demand
Upset Players
Missed Revenue
Pay As You Scale

5. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Pay As You Scale

6. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
10 Regions
51 CloudFront POPs
Continuous Expansion
Global Is Good

7. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014

8. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Game Backend Concepts
• Think in terms of API's
• Get friends, leaderboard
• HTTP+JSON
• Binary asset data
• Mobile push
• Multiplayer servers

9. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Core Game Backend
ELB
S3
• Choose Region
• Elastic Load Balancer
• Two Availability Zones
• EC2 for App
• RDS Database
• Multi-AZ
• S3 for Game Data
• Assets
• UGC
• Analytics
Region

10. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Scale It Way Out
ELB
S3
• Auto Scaling Group
• Capacity on Demand
• Respond to Users
EC2EC2EC2
Region

11. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Scale It Way Out
ELB
S3
• Auto Scaling Group
• Capacity on Demand
• Respond to Users
• ElastiCache
• Memcache
• Redis EC2EC2EC2
Region

12. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Scale It Way Out
CloudFront
CDN
ELB
S3
EC2EC2EC2
Region
• Auto Scaling Group
• Capacity on Demand
• Respond to Users
• ElastiCache
• Memcache
• Redis
• CloudFront CDN
• DLC, Assets
• Game Saves
• UGC

13. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Big picture slide

14. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Elastic Beanstalk
• Managed Container
• Git Push or Zip Upload
• ELB, EC2, RDS
• Web Dashboard
• Same Performance
• So Yeah, Use It

15. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Hill Of Beans
ELB
S3
• Beanstalk Manages
• ELB
• EC2
• Auto Scaling
• Monitoring
• RDS
• Add Other Services
• S3
• CloudFront
• ElastiCache
• SNS
EC2
Elastic Beanstalk Container
EC2
CloudFront
CDN

16. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014

17. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
More CLI bell
cd
MyGameAPI
eb
init
eb
start
vi
app.rb
require
'sinatra'
get
'/hello.json'
do
{message:
"Hello
World!"}
End
git
commit
–m
"app
updates"
app.rb
git
aws.push
• Initialize everything
• Write code
• Commit to git
• Push to Beanstalk
• Coffee / Beer
• Repeat

18. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014

19. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Region
Writing Is Painful
Availability
Zone A
Availability
Zone B
S3
EC2
• Games are Write Heavy
• Caching of Limited Use
• Key Value Key Value
• Binary Structures
• Database = Bottleneck
ELB
EC2
CloudFront
CDN

20. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Sharding (Not Fun)
Availability
Zone A
C2

21. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
DynamoDB
Availability
Zone A
Availability
Zone B
S3
• NoSQL Data Store
• Fully-Managed
• Highly Available
• PUT/GET Keys
• Secondary Indexes
• Provisioned Throughput
• Auto Scaling
EC2 EC2
ELB
CloudFront
CDN
Elastic Beanstalk Container

22. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Leaderboard in DynamoDB
• Hash key = Primary key
• Range key = Sub key
• Others attributes are
unstructured, unindexed
• So… How to sort based
on Top Score?

23. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Leaderboard with Secondary Indexes
• Create a secondary index!
• Set hash key to Game Level
• Set range key to Top Score
• Can now query by Level,
Sorted by Top Score
• Handles any (sane) gaming
use case

24. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Python Leaderboard
table
=
Table('scores',
schema=[
HashKey('user'),
RangeKey('level')
],
throughput={
'read':
5,
'write':
15
},
global_indexes=[
GlobalAllIndex('highscore',
parts=[
HashKey('level'),
RangeKey('score',
data_type=NUMBER)
],
throughput={
'read':
5,
'write':
15
}
)
])
new_score
=
Item(table,
data={
'user':
user,
'level':
level,
'score':
score
})
new_score.save()
topscores
=
table.query(index='highscore')
for
ts
in
topscores:
print(ts['user'],
ts['score'])

25. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Big picture slide

26. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
G2 Instance
• NVIDIA Kepler GPU
• Game Streaming
• Rendering Assets
• Build Servers
• AppStream!

27. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
C3 Instance
• High packets per second
• Very low latency, jitter
• Intel Ivy Bridge CPU
• SSD's
• Built for games
• 15 cents / hour

28. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Enhanced Networking (SR-IOV)
Before:
Hypervisor
After:
Hardware

29. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Multiplayer Game Servers
EC2EC2 EC2
Region
• Beanstalk App
• Core Session
• Matchmaking
• Public Server Tier
• Direct Client Socket
• Scale on Players
• CloudFront CDN
• DLC, Assets
• Game Saves
• UGC
EC2

30. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Multiplayer Game Servers
① Login via Beanstalk
② Request Matchmaking
③ Get Game Server IP
EC2EC2 EC2
Region
EC2

31. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Multiplayer Game Servers
① Login via Beanstalk
② Request Matchmaking
③ Get Game Server IP
④ Connect to Server
⑤ Pull Down Assets
⑥ Other Players Join
EC2EC2 EC2
Region
EC2

32. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Multiplayer Game Servers
① Login via Beanstalk
② Request Matchmaking
③ Get Game Server IP
④ Connect to Server
⑤ Pull Down Assets
⑥ Other Players Join
⑦ Game Ends
⑧ Update Stats
EC2EC2 EC2
Region
EC2

33. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Multi-Region Game Servers
E2
Region
EC2
Region

34. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Big picture slide

35. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Messages and Queues
ELB
S3
• Simple Notification Service
• HTTP
• SMS
• Mobile Push
EC2EC2EC2
Region

36. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Messages and Queues
ELB
• Simple Notification Service
• HTTP
• SMS
• Mobile Push
• CloudWatch
• Monitoring
• Alerts
EC2EC2EC2
Region
EC2
PUB

37. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Messages and Queues
ELB
EC2EC2EC2
Region
EC2EC2
• Simple Notification Service
• HTTP
• SMS
• Mobile Push
• CloudWatch
• Monitoring
• Alerts
• SQS
• Background Tasks
• Avatar Resizing
• Score Processing

38. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Messages and Queues
ELB
EC2EC2EC2
Region
EC2EC2
• Simple Notification Service
• HTTP
• SMS
• Mobile Push
• CloudWatch
• Monitoring
• Alerts
• SQS
• Background Tasks
• Avatar Resizing
• Score Processing

39. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Messages and Queues
ELB
EC2EC2EC2
Region
EC2EC2
• Simple Notification Service
• HTTP
• SMS
• Mobile Push
• CloudWatch
• Monitoring
• Alerts
• SQS
• Background Tasks
• Avatar Resizing
• Score Processing
PUB

40. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Wrap It Up Already
• Start Simple With Beanstalk
• Go Directly to DynamoDB, Do Not Pass Go
• CloudFront + S3 for Download and Upload
• Add Multiplayer - Hybrid
• Use the EC2 C3 Instance
• SQS to Decouple and Scale

41. AWS Gaming Solutions | GDC 2014
Cheers – Nate Wiger @nateware