About DrawCoin Creative
is an online multi player game provider that has a vast community of gamers and reviewers spread across the globe. Their CityBuilding multi player game has high requirements for solid, robust and scalable computing and data storage facilities. Since the gamers are from different geographic regions, DrawCoin Creative needed highly distributed clusters of computing and data management nodes. Since their community is expanding they were looking for a highly scalable and fast infrastructure to implement.
The Game
DrawCoin’s multiplayer online CityBuilding game is a blend of rich graphics and realistic actions. Their base modules themselves needed high amount of memory and computing capabilities due to the fact that:
- The game has about 25 different modes starting from training to Country Projects.
- There are more than 100 City types with different specification and feature levels.
- There are more than 100 levels of skill ranging from amateur to professional for the gamers.
- Enormous amount of data is there in the form of player profile, statistics, city/locations/geography/climate details, configurations per player, leaderboards etc.
The Computing Server Part
DrawCoin’s multi player CityBuilding game was developed using different technologies like shell based CGIs, Node.js etc. They are using a distributed computing network with high end specifications for providing the most real-time experience for their gamers. The infrastructure included nodes deployed as clusters with top load balancing schemes.
But when they realized that the threshold of their data storage capabilities were approaching rapidly due to the growing gamer community, they started thinking about a Data Storage Solution that supports the computing infrastructure with the required support and integrity. After doing some research and case studies, they decided to use MySQL based Database as a Service hosted solution. This crucial decision was made mainly because of the capabilities of MySQL and the flexibility and efficiency they realized to achieve from a hosted solution.
The MySQL DBaaS Service Provider
They selected ClusterEngine as their service provider from an initial list of DBaaS providers. ClusterEngine stands distinct from others due to their portfolio, infrastructure, support, technology and flexible on-the-go pricing. The transition from their in-house database server to ClusterEngine’s solution was smoothly handled by ClusterEngine without any downtime.
DrawCoin is offered the cloud based MySQL cluster instances that are deployed in different data centers across the globe. Client API calls are routed by computing server to the nearest data server, thus reducing response time and latency to match the needs of a strategy game. The intelligent load balancing system of ClusterEngine distributed the heavy load evenly to the replicated servers in the cluster.
The Result
The end user experience was amazing according to the feedback received by DrawCoin. The game got top reviews and gamer community started growing rapidly. The in-house engineering team was happy with the High Availability and Prompt Support from the DBaaS provider ClusterEngine. Up-time touched 99.9% with minimal maintenance schedule. The most fascinating experience for DrawCoin was the potential of scalability that they really utilized well. More database instances were allocated upon request, due to the high volume gaming and the cost was still less than that would be in the case of an in-house deployment. They paid for only what they consumed and the company’s revenue clearly indicated the savings that they yielded by this Database Outsourcing.
According to the CTO of DrawCoin Creative – Bum-Erdenehiyn Dorzhgotov:
“We were running in full throttle and our in-house deployment was throwing signs of under-performance with the growing gaming activities, during when we decided to switch to the DBaaS provider ClusterEngine. The migration, otherwise a nightmare, was smoother than what we expected. After the migration and deployment, our computing performance also increased due to the fast response time and geo-location based routing. And when we needed more space and resources, they were just a few mouse clicks away in the control panel provided by ClusterEngine for us. All this came with highly affordable cost and gave us the peace of mind that we re-utilized for concentrating in improvisation of our product.”
The Technical Advantages MySQL DBaaS Provided to DrawCoin
Apart from high availability, scalability and reliable support, ClusterEngine’s MySQL DBaaS provided DrawCoin with the following invaluable advantages.
- Enhanced security – the cloud based instances are deployed in a highly secure, isolated from public network with firewall protected and restricted IP/Host environment. Any attempt of intentional or unintentional security breach is immediately detected, blocked, recorded and notified.
- Reliable Backup Schemes – the replicated server architecture and MySQL’s in-built support for high end replication, allowed implementation of a solid and steady backup scheme with zero downtime.
- Speed and Optimization – the MySQL DBaaS provided Slow Query Log and Performance Monitoring Report helped the engineering team to optimize and fine tune the queries for maximum performance.
- Analytics Dashboard – the traffic, performance, query logs and other analytics provided in the Dashboard and in the form of detailed reports, enabled DrawCoin to form a research team that efficiently used the reports to formulate and implement strategies for horizontal scaling.
- The ClusterEngine DBaaS was fully responsible for the maintenance, troubleshooting, configuration and upgrades of the MySQL cloud instances. This allowed DrawCoin to be free from stressful system administration tasks and they got more opportunities and time to focus on the other parts of their infrastructure.
- The MySQL Cluster Architecture seamlessly blended with DrawCoin’s computing and middle-ware infrastructure to produce astonishing outputs and massive expansion and popularity of the gaming community.
Conclusion
DrawCoin Creative believes, the current popularity and broad gamer base for their CityBuilding game was made possible by the intelligent decision of switching to the MySQL DBaaS provided by ClusterEngine. Developed by one of the world’s largest technology corporation and supported by a 100% reliable service provider – ClusterEngine, this MySQL DBaaS is still playing its crucial role in supporting DrawCoin’s endeavors and contributing to its growth.