The Benefits of ServerBeach for Your Online Games…

The Benefits of ServerBeach for your online games

You can download the podcast here…
http://www.indiegamepod.com/podcasts/serverbeach-podcast.mp3

Or listen to it here…

Show Notes:
Interviewer: I’m at the Game Developers Conference in San Francisco and with me today is a special guest. How about you introduce yourself?

Roger: Hi, my name is Roger Gonzales. I’m actually the Sales Manager for ServerBeach which is a Peer 1 Company.

Interviewer: How would indie game developers use ServerBeach for their games?

Roger: Basically, what you would do is you would actually pick a location that is the closest to you, obviously, for latency reasons. Basically, you would lease the server from us. We give you access to it. You can log in remotely, install your game and run whatever you want. You can run a website in conjunction with that as well, if you prefer.

You, basically, lease the server from us. You go month to month, so it’s a ridiculously low risk. You can try for 30 days at a time, so especially for development staging, gaming or just tinkering, for whatever reason, you could use the server for any of those purposes.

Interviewer: Are there any popular applications that you see small studios using servers for?

Roger: Not necessarily and the reason for that is because the analogy that I use to describe our service is much like leasing a house. What I mean by that is we don’t really audit our customers, so when you lease the house we make sure the house is functional but you can decorate it any way you want.

Interviewer: OK.

Roger: We don’t really limit you to what you can install on the box.

Interviewer: OK. So, you don’t know if people are running it for MMOs or for a web page or for stuff like that?

Roger: Yeah, of course, they are. They definitely are running it for MMOs and all different kinds of games or development staging environments for games. Now, it’s the reason we’re here because 50 percent of the people that are ranked with EA sports are actually hosting on our network.

So, we usually have over a hundred servers apiece, but it’s all the way to people that actually want to get together and split the cost of a server and run whatever game or software they want to on the box because we don’t really audit our customers. We don’t really know exactly what it is they are running.

Interviewer: How long does it take to set up a server and to scale it to people who need to scale it quickly?

Roger: That’s a great question. Actually, to set up a server – if you were to order a single server and you ordered it today, it would be ready within a 24 hour period. It’s going to shoot you an email so that you can log in and start moving your stuff over. So, it’s that quick.

Now, if you’re moving from a one server environment to a multi-server environment, at that point it’s a little more complicated because you have to create a private network between those boxes and in a data center a single server area and the private network area are different places.

Once you have a minimum of two servers, then it’s easier to scale because all you’re doing is dropping boxes into your private veeland. So, from one to two it is a little complex, but after you’re in the two and you have your private veeland [?] it’s really simple to scale horizontally.

Interviewer: There are a lot of other posting providers. What is the benefit of ServerBeach by Peer1?

Roger: Yeah, absolutely. The benefit is going to be our network and the fact that we actually own our network. What that means is that if you and any hosting company that you are doing business with today, when your data leaves their data center you are at the mercy of the public Internet at that point. It can take however many hops it wants because of the routing and the way the Internet works.

Well, with Peer 1 since we own our network we have peering arrangements with five or six hundred other companies that actually guarantee that once the data leaves our network it is going to go over to their network at the shortest route guaranteed.

Now, not only that but they don’t charge us transit over their network and vice versa. Because of that, it allows us to pass the savings on to the customer which is why YouTube does business with us. Other companies, like their overage rate for bandwidth is 75 cents per gig, and that’s some of the not very good competitors. Like with us, it’s 30 cents. They can save you a ton of money and you’re pumping a lot of traffic.

Interviewer: Is there anything else that other indie game developers should know about ServerBeach, or how they can get started?

Roger: Actually, it’s really simple to get started. Like I said, because you’re doing this podcast all you really have to do is let them know that you met me out here or they know you, and we’ve got a special deal going or whatever. So, I’m willing to give them a discount and show them appreciation for you actually promoting us. Just give us a call. We can get it done within a day. Let me know that you met me here and that they know you, and we’ll get it taken care of. It’s not a problem at all. It’s very simple.

Interviewer: So, that’s serverbeach.com.

Roger: That is serverbeach.com and there’s 20 something boxes to choose from. Again, my name is Roger Gonzales and I’m the Sales Manager there. You are more than welcome to call me directly, and we can go ahead and get this thing taken care of. It’s like I said. It’s really simple. The advantage is that it is month to month so, again, it’s very, very low risk. You don’t have to sign a 6 to 12 month contract.

Interviewer: Thank you very much.

Roger: Not a problem.