Project Description
About S2 Games
S2 Games is a video game development company based in Kalamazoo, Michigan. A leader in the free-to-play multiplayer online battle arena genre of gaming, S2 Games has been developing games in the industry since 2003.
The Challenge
Finding their dedicated server infrastructure to be under-utilized and expensive, S2 Games was looking for a new solution to host the Latin America region for their game, Heroes of Newerth. Reducing cost while becoming more efficient were the company’s main goals in seeking a migration. One of its primary objectives was to use auto-scaling to create a more elastic environment that scales with active users on the game at any given time.
The Solution
To create an auto-scaling AWS infrastructure, WSM developed four-phase migration program that would take three months to complete.
- Used AWS Redshift to assess current server usage and active player base to establish a baseline and create a workflow for continued review of the environment using analytics.
- Based on the data discovered in step one, WSM created auto-scaling policies designed to create an elastic environment that grows and shrinks as players log in and out of the game.
- Using the auto-scaling policies created in step two, WSM migrated the Windows servers the games were hosted on to EC2 instances. SaltStack was used for configuration management and remote administration of these servers to ensure games in progress were not canceled.
- WSM finished by migrating the Linux application servers that handled the logic, purchases, and management of users to EC2 instances with RDS used for database storage and Elasticache. Static content was migrated to S3 storage buckets.
The Results
- Reduced costs for the region due to the elastic cloud infrastructure
- Mitigated costs allowed S2 Games to repurpose funds to market the game in the region and expand the user base
- A more reliable connection speed for online games, resulting in significant performance gains
