Azure PlayFab Multiplayer Servers intro (Linux)

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We recorded and published an intro video about using Azure PlayFab Multiplayer Servers service with game servers built as Linux Docker containers. Feel free to check out the recording and let us know if you have any questions!

Links:
– Multiplayer Servers documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/servers/
– Game Server SDK: https://github.com/playfab/gsdk
– Multiplayer Servers samples: https://github.com/playfab/MpsSamples
– Local Multiplayer Agent: https://github.com/playfab/MpsAgent

Azure PlayFab Multiplayer Servers intro (Windows)

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As part of Azure Gaming’s GameStackLive event, we recorded two sessions about using Azure PlayFab Multiplayer Servers service.

The first session is about using the service with Windows game servers, you can watch it here:

The second session is about using advanced scaling scenarios, check it out here:

Let me know in the comments if you have any feedback!

Links:
– Multiplayer Servers documentation: https://docs.microsoft.com/en-us/gaming/playfab/features/multiplayer/servers/
– Game Server SDK: https://github.com/playfab/gsdk
– Multiplayer Servers samples: https://github.com/playfab/MpsSamples
– Local Multiplayer Agent: https://github.com/playfab/MpsAgent

Certified Kubernetes Application Developer

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Capture

Really happy to share that yesterday I succeeded in taking the Certified Kubernetes Application Developer (CKAD) exam (official page) from the Cloud Native Computing Foundation. This is an online 2-hour, proctored, performance based practical test that consists of several problems that are to be solved using only the command line. Exam format is really similar to the Linux Foundation Certified System Administrator exam that I took last year. The problem domains are the following, along with their weights (June 2018):

  • 13% – Core Concepts
  • 18% Configuration
  • 10% Multi-Container Pods
  • 18% – Observability
  • 20% – Pod Design
  • 13% – Services & Networking
  • 8% – State Persistence

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Presenting at Microsoft Build 2018 about game development and Azure

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IMG_0052

This year, I was lucky enough to be invited to Seattle to present two sessions on Microsoft Build 2018 developer conference. Both sessions were presented by Brian Peek and myself and their focus was on game development using Microsoft Azure.

At the first session, we demonstrated how to scale dedicated multiplayer game servers on Azure Container Instances using various Azure Services like Functions, Event Grid and more. Project we demonstrated is open source, completely written in Node.js and you can find it here on GitHub. Same project got a really cool mention at the Azure Container Instances general availability announcement blog post, check the video here (thanks Justin!).

At the second session, we demonstrated how to use Azure Cognitive Services as well as Functions and Cosmos DB to power up a Unity game. Moreover, we added some PlayFab stuff like leaderboards and events. This project is open source as well and you can find it here.

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Big data reference architecture for an online multiplayer game on Azure

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TL;DR – code is here on GitHub

A customer I’ve been talking to recently asked me to work together to create a reference implementation (more like a proof of concept) for the next generation the backend for a game they currently have. In short, they needed a platform that would accommodate these needs and specifications:

  • accept incoming messages from game servers
  • incoming message rate would be a couple of hundred messages per minute
  • we need to store game session related events, so each piece of data is relevant to a specific game session that can run for minutes (20′-30′)
  • scalability and high availability (of course)
  • data is needed to be displayed in real-time (e.g. live leaderboards)
  • data is needed to be stored for later analysis (e.g. best players of the week)

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Using Azure Functions, Node.js and Cosmos DB to create a game leaderboard

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In the previous blog post, we described some thoughts on how to design a game leaderboard and how to represent it programmatically. In this one, we are going to discuss about a new open source project of mine called AzureFunctionsNodeLeaderboards-Cosmos. As the name implies, this project is about game leaderboards using Azure Functions with Node.js and Cosmos DB.Read More »

Designing a general purpose game leaderboard

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In this blog post we are going to write down some thoughts regarding a game leaderboard implementation. They are written as question and answer pairs and cover the leaderboard design process as well as its technical implementation on a high level.

What is a leaderboard?

Leaderboards are a necessary asset for many types of games. A leaderboard provides a means to reward the best users and increase the game’s replay value by allowing the players to compete. It is defined as a collection of high scores achieved in a game session during a specific time segment in a specific portion of game for a specific set of users.

  • ‘time segment’ relates to the lifetime of the leaderboard. Is it permanent or resets every day/week/month?
  • ‘game portion’ relates to the portion/segment of the game the score was achieved in. Is the score relevant to the entire game or in just one of its levels? Is the score relevant to a single round of gameplay (single session) or multiple ones?
  • ‘specific set of users’ relates to the ‘locality’ of the users and means that the leaderboard may contain scores for users that are in single machine or in a specific region (e.g. Europe) or worldwide

seawolfscreenshot
Sea Wolf, the first video game to use the term “high score”, Wikipedia

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Deploying a Docker Swarm Mode cluster on Azure Container Service

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On June 28th, 2017, Azure Container Service team announced that a new version of the service was deployed in the UK region. This version exposes some new cool features with one of them being the ability to deploy DockerCE (swarm mode) clusters. In this article, you will see how the Azure CLI can be used to deploy a DockerCE cluster in Azure Container Service. Once the cluster is deployed, you can manage it with the docker command-line tool and deploy your Linux container(s).

This tutorial requires the Azure CLI version 2.0.4 or later. Run az --version to find the version. If you need to upgrade, see Install Azure CLI 2.0. You can also use the embedded shell in Azure Portal, called Azure Cloud Shell.

If you don’t have an Azure subscription, create a free account before you begin.

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Using SSL/TLS for a service hosted on a Kubernetes cluster

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This article will dive into the necessary steps that you need to do in order to use SSL/TLS for a service of yours that is hosted on a Kubernetes cluster, making it accessible via https. We will use one Microsoft Bot Framework app to demonstrate this. This framework allows you to easily built chatbots that are hosted on the provider of your choice. Its Bot Connector service allows your bot to open “conversation channels” with Messenger, Skype, Slack and other providers. For this purpose, it requires the chatbot’s endpoint to be accessible via SSL/HTTPS, so that makes for a nice proof of concept apt for this article. So, how would you host a chatbot app on a Kubernetes cluster, taking into account the SSL requirement? One option, of course, would be to have the app itself handle the certificate process, like this example. The other option, which you’ll see in this article, is to use the Kubernetes ingress controller to handle all the SSL setup and usage. The only prerequisites from your side is to have a domain name that the certificate will be issued for and, of course, access to a Kubernetes cluster.

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