Although it's hard to say exactly what Zynga is doing, I certainly know how I would approach the problem, and for a start I'd use RightScale to manage our instances to avoid the problems to quite rightly mention. :)
Cheers, Shane On Dec 3, 4:34 am, Eli Jones <[email protected]> wrote: > Maybe one of the Google developers will see this and can provide you with an > informed answer.. but, if it slips through the cracks, you should definitely > ask during the IRC office hours (or just check #appengine on > irc.freenode.net, since someone from Google may be there at any time.) > > Do you know how Zynga's backend is set up on AWS? I would imagine it's > pretty complex so, you have to have the system architects and administrators > to manage that. > > If your app becomes popular on a Farmville scale, you'd have to be prepared > to automatically start-up new instances and balance load across them. Which > means you'd need to spend time and energy designing this sort of system up > front. > > Though, if you just plan on cranking up an Extra Large EC2 Instance and > running off of that (and maybe using SimpleDB on the back end).. and dealing > with front end scaling issues later. You would probably be fine.. most apps > do not become popular on the Farmville scale. SimpleDB will enforce a > little database discipline, and, if you do "blow up", you could probably > figure out how to load balance over multiple static instances until you > cooked up some sort of automated scaling method. (Again, this depends on > you using SimpleDB on the back-end.) > > With Appengine, you avoid any sort of systems architecting (just code as > fast as possible).. but you have to spend time coding ways to deal with the > 99th percentile outlier Datastore issues. > > Maybe there are some people here who have user facing apps who can speak > about this from experience (I happily do backend processing where retrying a > failed datastore operation or a failed cold start is no problem.. and there > is no user on the other side to become frustrated.) > > > > > > > > On Thu, Dec 2, 2010 at 1:10 AM, Shane <[email protected]> wrote: > > I know this has been asked one way or another before, but most of the > > main issues to do with GAE stability seem to have been asked around > > the end of 2008, early 2009. > > > Basically, I have been arguing back and forth with my business partner > > about whether to use GAE or AWS for the back-end of our social game > > engine. I love GAE (Java) for so many reasons, and although it used > > to be unstable, it's pretty good now. The main argument in favour of > > AWS is the fact that AWS has proven itself with multiple games running > > tens of millions of active users per day. The obvious pin-up child > > for AWS is Zynga, with its Farmville peaking at 80+million DAU. And > > that's just one of the hugely successful games running on the AWS > > infrastructure. Remarkable achievement. > > > So, one way or another it's KNOWN to work. GAE on the other hand > > doesn't have any examples that I could find doing these sorts of > > numbers. Not even close. So can I trust it? Is there a single > > example of a large social game with millions of Daily Active Users, > > using GAE? > > > I look forward to your thoughts, but please also note, this is not > > intended to start any sort of flame war. I love both systems, but > > both have their positives and negatives, but I'm about to make an > > architectural decision that likely won't be undone moving forward. > > > Regards, > > Shane > > > -- > > You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups > > "Google App Engine" group. > > To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. > > To unsubscribe from this group, send email to > > [email protected]<google-appengine%2Bunsubscrib > > [email protected]> > > . > > For more options, visit this group at > >http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en. -- You received this message because you are subscribed to the Google Groups "Google App Engine" group. To post to this group, send email to [email protected]. To unsubscribe from this group, send email to [email protected]. For more options, visit this group at http://groups.google.com/group/google-appengine?hl=en.
