IaaS Gave New Life to The Popular Game Angry Birds

Game Industry - How IaaS Gave New Life to The Popular Game Angry Birds

Who would have thought that all the famous and The Popular Game Angry Birds 2.0 is associated with cloud technologies. Nevertheless, the app today is incredibly popular, the number of users is only growing, setting the Rovio Entertainment's Finnish mobile game developers is the task of ensuring scalability. In the first week of release Angry Birds 2.0 the number of downloads has exceeded 20 million.

IaaS Gave New Life to The Popular Game Angry Birds

"When talking about games, focused on the mass market with the potential of hundreds of millions of users, the requirements for the IT Infrastructure in a format different from the traditional approach. Even a small mistake costs a lot. The need for scalability and rapid deployment of services need to become an excuse to create its own cloud platform, called the Hatch".
Juhani Honkala,
Senior Vice President of Rovio Entertainment

Today, this platform every second handles thousands of user requests, including answering and processing of analytical data. Since the cloud platform Hatch initially focused on the high loads, the company did not have problems with the launch and operation of the service. The platform easily scales and serves more than 250 million monthly users.

The Origin of The Cloud Platform - The Popular Game Angry Birds

As noted in the company, exactly 6 years ago, everything was different. The first version of Angry Birds, launched in 2009, used the game engine without being tied to the cloud. But after the success of the game, when the total number of downloads has exceeded three billion, reflected on a scalable cloud-oriented server system. The company was looking for an alternative that could solve the problem of unexpected load due to a sharp increase in the number of users. Besides providing needed resources and operational capacity, depending on the load.

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"When we started creating a cloud platform, the world was different. The company turned to the question: why do not you build your own data center? Do not use the cloud, it can not be trusted, it is too expensive. But the benefits of cloud loomed immediately. And if you look at it today, cloud saves and easily cope with the deployment tasks, says Honkala.

Begin to build a new platform, Rovio Entertainment has paid attention to the issue of scaling and automation. The company implemented the modern solutions that can process large amounts of data. Today it is a mix of Java technology, Angular, NoSQL databases, Hadoop combinations and other real-time-systems.

IT Rovio ideology is based on the creation of large networks of subcontractors. This means that the cloud of the platform is designed to be independent from one cloud provider.

"Tying yourself to one provider - the risk on the path to cloud adjustment. Perhaps we want to optimize costs by switching to another cloud provider or go to a supplier abroad. We built cloud platform on the basis of the flexibility to switch to the cloud platform vendors and successfully launched services using three different cloud architecture, Honkala says.

The transformation tasks through automation

In 2009, the company's infrastructure is different from the present. Despite the difficulties, Rovio has grown from a company of 50 employees to the organization of the scale, more than 700 people. Today, game-supplier specialized in the production of goods, publishing and film production.

"We have significantly invested in automation. For example, the assembly of films is done automatically using a variety of platforms. If we are building, or trying to do something new, cloud-based technologies simplify product testing and output in the production process", explained Honkala.

IaaS Gave New Life to The Popular Game Angry Birds

In addition to the use of business automation tools Rovio has created its own cloud-based automation platform Hatch. This makes it possible to automatically update, including automatic configuration of servers and support systems in the cloud. Have almost fully automated production chain - the result of hard way, where the main processes were performed manually.

The Popular Game Angry Birds - Value-Added Function

Angry Birds 2.0 was created in a studio located in Stockholm. Significant changes in the gameplay are associated with a greater emphasis on social functions, videonagrady, in-game-payment, which once again confirms the benefits of using a cloud platform. Reaching the goal of building a stable and reliable infrastructure, Rovio plans to focus on value-added functions. It promises the development of a new type of advertising and the possibility to add events within the game.

The Popular Game Angry Birds - Results

To make business easier and more flexible manufacturing processes, companies choose cloud solutions offered by service providers in various models (the IaaS, of SaaS). On the example of Rovio Entertainment company's successful development shows that the cloud technology played a significant role. Today, cloud-based services are used to automate tasks, greatly simplify the testing process and to market the product. Finding an alternative in the form of a cloud platform, the company copes with the task of processing large amounts of data, solving unforeseen load growth problems due to a sharp increase in the number of users.