Elite Dangerous is a Kickstarter-backed, massive-scale space MMO by Frontier Games. With no prior experience with AWS, Frontier have used EC2, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, Elasticache, and CloudFormation to deploy a cross-platform PC & Console MMO experience that is sold and distributed worldwide.  Every action made by each of the 825,000 (and counting) Elite Dangerous players drives the combined game's story forward, and impacts a live galactic commodities market running on EC2 and RDS in real-time.  Frontier uses Elite Dangerous is a Kickstarter-backed, massive-scale space MMO by Frontier Games. With no prior experience with AWS, Frontier have used EC2, S3, RDS, DynamoDB, Elasticache, and CloudFormation to deploy a cross-platform PC & Console MMO experience that is sold and distributed worldwide.  Every action made by each of the 825,000 (and counting) Elite Dangerous players drives the combined game's story forward, and impacts a live galactic commodities market running on EC2 and RDS in real-time.  Frontier uses AWS to create a simulation of the entire 400 billion star systems of the Milky Way galaxy using physics engines running on Amazon EC2. Finally, learn how Elite distributes updates and DLC to game clients using Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront.to create a simulation of the entire 400 billion star systems of the Milky Way galaxy using physics engines running on Amazon EC2. Finally, learn how Elite distributes updates and DLC to game clients using Amazon S3 and Amazon CloudFront.

1. © 2015, Amazon Web Services, Inc. or its Affiliates. All rights reserved.
David Walsh, COO
Dav Stott – Senior Server Developer
October 2015
GAM403
From 0 to 60 Million Player Hours
Frontier Developments plc
in 400 Billion Star Systems

9. Boss level challenge 1
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer

11. Multiplayer architecture
edServer
P2P

12. Multiplayer architecture
Shared Galaxy
AWS Elastic Beanstalk  PHP
MongoDB
Redis
Amazon
DynamoDB
Amazon
S3

13. STUN / TURN servers
•NAT traversal and network relay services
nslookup
turn.server
Amazon Route 53
Latency routing
eu-west-1
EC2
eu-west-1a
EC2
eu-west-1b
TURNTURN
•Uses worldwide AWS data centers to reduce P2P latency
ap-southeast-2
EC2
ap-southeast-
2a
EC2
ap-southeast-
2b
TURN TURN

14. eu-west-1a
edServer and Auto Scaling
edServer.exe
Amazon CloudWatch
Players
Frames/second
metrics.py
EU #19
Amazon EC2 edServer builds
hosted in Amazon S3
watchDog.py
EC2 management
API

15. edServer and Auto Scaling
eu-west-1
EU1 EU2 EU3
EU4 EU5 EU6
EU7 EU8 EU9
EU10 EU11 EU12
EU13 EU14 EU15
EU16 EU17 EU18
??
EU20 EU21 EU22
EU2
3
EU24 EU25
EU26 EU27 EU28

16. edServer and Matchmaking
Giving players the best possible online experience
GET /server
API
EU/GB
Travelled to Barnards Star
In Wing
0 5 10 15 20 25
Server OC 1
Server EU 2
Server EU 3
Alpha Centauri
Sol
Barnards Star
Wings

17. edServer and load balancing
Quiet servers are easier to terminate
Stack players up to server load capacities

18. Central web API, autoscaling, and authentication
eu-west-1
Availability Zone A
DynamoDB
RDS
Amazon ElastiCache
Auto Scaling group
PHP
S3
PHP
Availability Zone B

19. A few learning points
aws autoscaling suspend-processes --scaling-
processes AZRebalance --region eu-west-1 --auto-
scaling-group-name <ASGNAME>
boto.ec2.autoscale.connect_to_region().
terminate_instance(instanceId, true)

20. A few learning points
EC2 API rate limit
PHP’s Composer is vulnerable at deployment time
Orchestration and configuration in source control

21. Commanders and ships
Relational Document
MySQL MongoDB 3
id 103911108
credits 9119226
name A.N.Other
alive 1
currentShip 0
currentShipType FerDeLance
{
"_id": {"commander_id": 103911108, "slot": 0},
"name": "FerDeLance",
"modules": {
"HugeHardpoint1": "Hpt_BeamLaser_Huge",
"MediumHardpoint1": "Hpt_PulseLaserBurst_Small",
"MediumHardpoint2": "Hpt_PulseLaserBurst_Small",
"Armour":"FerDeLance_Armour_Grade1",
"FrameShiftDrive": "Int_Hyperdrive_Size4_Class5"
},
"health": {"hull": 1000000, "shieldup": true},
"fuel": {"capacity": 8, "lvl": 6.554478},
"reserve": {"lvl": 0.9162},
}

22. MongoDB 3 on EC2
eu-west-1
t1.
micro
Amazon
Route 53
mongo-a 10.1.2.3
mongo-b 10.2.2.3
mongo-c 10.3.2.3
mongo-
backup
10.1.2.4
mongo-
arbiter
10.2.2.4

23. Boss level challenge 2
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer
• Set in the real 1:1 sized Milky Way galaxy
• Accurately simulate 400 B star systems

28. Rings
Moons
Binaries

29. Name: LHS 6309 A 1.
Class: TerrestrialClassification_EarthLike.
Mass: 1.8877(Gas:0.000, Volatiles:0.685, Rock:0.212, Metal:0.102)
Radius: 1.475 Earths.
Surface temp: 144.821 K.
Black body temp: 144.821 K.
Approx magma temp: 3740.786 K.
Semi-major axis: 0.025 AU.
Eccentricity: 0.076.
Inclination: -0.000 radians?]
Surface pressure: 4961.263 Atm.
Volcanism type: WaterGeysers.
Atmosphere composition: eAtmosphereClass_EarthLike(Nitrogen(1.000),
Oxygen(0.000), Neon(0.000)).
Description: Tidally locked Earthlike body with thick atmosphere and major water
geysers volcanism.

31. Data storage
EC2 SSD instance storage
Elasticache Redis
RDS MySQL and Mongo
S3
Sophisticated simulation
Speed
Consistency
Only store “interesting” data

32. Boss level challenge 3
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer
• Set in the real 1:1 sized Milky Way galaxy
• Accurately simulate 400 B star systems
• Exploration, dynamic trading, outfitting

38. Exploration
Ship navigation computers (DynamoDB)
First discovery credits (S3)
{
"bodies": {"M": {"36028797039542902": { "N": "7" }}},
"cmdr_id": {"N": "119161"},
"ss_addr": {"N": "20578934"}
}
{
"system": {"name": "Sagittarius A*"},
"bodies": {
"36028797039542902": {
"name": "Sagittarius A* A",
"cmdrname": "Zulu Romeo",
"discovered": "2014-12-01 13:48:22“
}
}

39. Game event logs
eu-west-1
Availability Zone A
Auto Scaling group
PHP PHP
Availability Zone B
Amazon SQS
Queue 1
Queue 2

40. Trading and outfitting
Overlays:
Default stock of 1000
Player buys 200
Current stock of 800
Gets stored as 0.8
Gradually restocks over time
Until it returns to 1000 when it gets deleted
Players
Politics
Supply and demand
Core simulation

41. Supply and demand
eu-west-1
Availability Zone A Availability Zone B
Auto Scaling group
PHP PHP
{“buy”:{“fish”:200, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“buy”:{“fish”:75, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“sell”:{“fish”:275, “mkt”: “Sol”}}
{“buy”:{“tea”:20, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“sell”:{“cobalt”:200, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“buy”:{“tea”:500, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“sell”:{“cobalt”:40, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“buy”:{“fish”:200, “mkt”: “Lave”}}
{“sell”:{“tea”:500, “mkt”: “Sol”}}
{“lave”: {“fish”: 0.8,
“cobalt”: 1.1,
“tea”: 0.5}
{“sol”: {“fish”: 1.2,
“tea”: 1.5}

43. Game analytics

44. Game analytics
Shared
API
SQS
Queue
dispatchers
Elasticsearch
Kibana 4
Kibana 3
Custom
reports On premise servers

45. Boss level challenge 4
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer
• Set in the real 1:1 sized Milky Way galaxy
• Accurately simulate 400 B star systems
• Exploration and dynamic trading
• Player-driven story

49. Player-driven story
eu-west-1
Availability Zone A Availability Zone B
Auto Scaling group
PHP PHP
{
“faction: "9469194806713“,
"boom": 148,
"bust": 7,
"famine": 10,
"influence": 49
}
Sobek Boys
vs
Federal Bridge
{boom: +1} {inf: -4}

50. Community Goals

51. Community goals and leaderboards
eu-west-1
Availability Zone A Availability Zone B
Auto Scaling group
PHP PHP
ZADD "goal:1" 42 "Cmdr Dav"
ZADD "goal:1" 89 "Cmdr
Jameson"
ZADD "goal:1" 100 "Cmdr
Thrust"
ZREVRANGE "goal:1" 0 -1
1) "Cmdr Thrust"
2) "Cmdr Jameson"
3) "Cmdr Dav"
ZREVRANK "goal:1" "Cmdr
Dav"
(integer) 2

52. Powerplay

53. Boss level challenge 5
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer
• Set in the real 1:1 sized Milky Way galaxy
• Accurately simulate 400 B star systems
• Exploration and dynamic trading
• Player-driven story
• Sell and distribute the game ourselves

55. Store and distribution
https://frontierstore.net
RDS MySQL
Login servers
S3
Game builds
Amazon
CloudFront

56. Boss level challenge 6
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer
• Set in the real 1:1 sized Milky Way galaxy
• Accurately simulate 400 B star systems
• Exploration and dynamic trading
• Player-driven story
• Sell and distribute the game ourselves
• Add platforms, features, seasons

61. Close quarters combat championships
eu-west-1
Availability Zone A Availability Zone B
Auto Scaling group
PHP PHP
• Instant action PvP
• Join lobbies
• Background matchmaker

62. Boss level challenge 6
• Have similar impact as Elite did in 1984 using
• Modern CPU and GPU power
• Network connectivity
• Massively multiplayer
• Set in the real 1:1 sized Milky Way galaxy
• Accurately simulate 400 B star systems
• Exploration and dynamic trading
• Player-driven story
• Sell and distribute the game ourselves
• Add platforms, features, seasons

64. Thank you!