Cloud computing provider favors game developers

SoftLayer Technologies Inc. is marketing its services to online game developers. Offering dedicated, virtualized and managed servers with an array of other options, the company provide a platform where game developers can develop, test, launch and run their latest games.

The company's clients include Broken Bulb Game Studios, East Side Games, KIXEYE, Hothead Games and Storm8. According to SoftLayer, their services enable these companies to roll out cloud computing instances in minutes, or turn up dedicated servers in just two hours. This rapid response to gaming developers' dynamic infrastructure needs them to have the capacity they need, when they need it, through an easy consumptive billing model. This way they can focus on their core mission of game development and control costs by only paying for the servers they need at any given time.

Worldwide, online gaming revenue is estimated to reach $26.4 billion in 2015, more than doubling over the course of six years, according to DFC Intelligence; and this market is estimated to generate revenues of $1 billion by 2015 in Southeast Asia. In Singapore, the growth of the gaming sector is underscored by the establishment of a Games Solution Center (GSC) by the Media Development Authority in October 2011. This center provides resources for local game developers to develop their games. However, to achieve this exponential growth, gaming companies must be lithe and quickly adjust to the changing needs for IT infrastructure to support game play. But building out complex, costly data centers, and hiring specialized staff, is not the most prudent strategy.

To provide scalability, performance and control needed for gaming applications, SoftLayer integrates three distinct and redundant gigabit network architectures—public, private and datacenter-to-datacenter—into an innovative "network-within-a-network" topology.