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Thread: being a new GSP
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09-01-2007, 10:48 PM #1Junior Guru Wannabe
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being a new GSP
I've done a bit of research and still need more info. Any links or resources to info will be greatly appreciated.
Basically GSP = game service provider. I'm hoping to start up my own. I know the basics, like how I have to rent a dedicated server, and can control them with tcadmin. Billing can be done with whmcs.
What the parts of the machine does etc.
What else do I need to know? Do I need to know linux to manage the servers? Or to tweak them or anything?
Help please and thx =D
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09-01-2007, 10:54 PM #2Carpe Diem
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Unless you plan to use *nix you don't need to know anything about it. You might check out the "Emerging Technologies" topic on the forums here for different threads on game server hosting or do a search for "game servers". Both should yield plenty of reading.
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09-01-2007, 11:12 PM #3Junior Guru Wannabe
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thank you. what is meant by *nix?
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09-01-2007, 11:21 PM #4Retired Moderator
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Anything operating system ending in nix.. li-nix, u-nix.
Please do some searching on this topic before you start. I am not telling you not to start one, just please be prepared. It is NOT for the faint of heart.
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09-01-2007, 11:32 PM #5Web Hosting Master
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Well said, Raul... Well said.
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09-01-2007, 11:35 PM #6Junior Guru Wannabe
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haha thank you. yes tcadmin is for windows, sry for that careless mistake
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09-02-2007, 12:02 AM #7Junior Guru Wannabe
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currently i'm trying to decide on which locations are the best? NY for sure. Should I just start with the east, (I am from Canada so I do not know much about Western states).
If I choose west, what states are good? Btw, I'm going with this company: http://www.ultimategameserver.com/colo.php
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09-02-2007, 01:10 AM #8Web Hosting Master
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Depends. Sometimes the company you get your control panel from can help you install, secure and / manage if you don't know how to. Their are allot of dedicated server management companys out their. The thing that would benift you is maybe hiring someone who does servers without control panels. You could also hire an outsource company or 1 - 2 people to manage it for you. If you ever get a cpanel server i'd recommend http://www.platinumservermanagement.com they are a good cpanel management company
Good locations? New York, Chicago, Texas, California.
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09-02-2007, 06:40 PM #9Junior Guru Wannabe
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That's great. I'd also like to know what kind of problems I'd run into and how I go about fixing them? Such as routing problems.
If there is someone that can talk to me via instant messenger it'd be great. I'll even probably pay you after I've made some money as thanks for your advice.
Also if you can give me any links or websites for info it'd be great, I hate asking people questions over and over again.
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09-02-2007, 08:01 PM #10WebHosting Master
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I think before asking yourself where your server should be, come up with a business plan.
Some brief details :
1.) Length of investment before return?
2.) Capital?
3.) Customer age group and/or geographical location?
4.) Mode of business operation?
5.) Staff employment?
6.) Total cost?
Then let's take Total Cost - Total Income and try to figure how long before it becomes profitable.
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09-02-2007, 08:16 PM #11Junior Guru Wannabe
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I would recommend NYC & Chicago if you're just starting up
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09-02-2007, 08:23 PM #12Junior Guru Wannabe
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Routing problems? You gotta talk to your host about that, usually, a few hosts do not like dealing with latency issues, packet loss, and things like that. Those are usually the cheap hosts. If you truely want to be able to handle your own routing, it'll cost you a LOT more. It's usually not necessary to become your own network speaker. Over on the west coast, there are quite a few low latency providers in the area. Try picking a host with multiple uplinks to many many different Tier 1 providers. Lets use my company, vivid hosting for an example, since we peered with almost every other Tier1 and many more in the any 2 exchange, we have low latency. We usually dont have to deal with routing issues, but if you do, just hope your provider will handle it for you. I'll be glad to help you with game server questions, just keep posting on this forum! I'm sure others will be able to as well. Good luck! Cheers
Premier Internet ServicesDedicated servers, Colocation and IP Transit100% Uptime SLA, Strong peering to the West Coast and Asian Markets
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11-28-2007, 01:19 AM #13Web Hosting Guru
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Hmm I dont want to advertise but defcon|Rich does have some good deals when I planned on going into the gsp industry he was the best choice but after learning everything I knew it wasnt what I had expected
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11-28-2007, 04:17 AM #14Sec, DC and Virtual Architect
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Having, in a past life, sold and hosted more game servers then I care to remember, I will tell you it's a cutthroat business and even more finicky than web host users. First off, you need to consider your primary user base: gamers. As a gamer, I know I expect low ping, high performance and solid throughput. Gaming is significantly more sensitive than web hosting. I could care less if I pinged 200ms to a web server but if my in-game RTT was 200ms, I'd go find another server.
So, what's important:
1) You NEED to understand your business. What kind of hardware are you going to offer? How many game slots (and what games) can you offer on said server before it starts to degrade? What price can you offer that both entices new customers while at the same time, makes it worth your while to sell/support/maintain your game servers?
2) You need to look at software performance and know how to tune it. I'll use HLDS since that's by far and away, the most popular server on the internet. Do you run Linux or do you run Windows? Why do you run a particular version? (hint - the linux build has traditionaly been more picky on how it runs BUT it's been largely more stable and with better performance...not so true with other game servers and definately not true when Source originally came out).
3. How do you deal with plugins and modifications? The the craziness of CS 1.6 and the sheer number of plugins has dwindled, there's still a lot of popular plugins. However plugins eat at CPU and memory. At what point does user A start to trample of users B and C? How do you monitor that? How do you find out which HLDS server is hogging your resources?
4. What extra are you going to offer? Anyone can sell a game server. Anyone. You need to stand out. Are you going to host stats? Clan pages? Will you allow for vanity names (like clan ipwnjo0.com versus gsp.com/ipwnjo0)?
5. You discussed the server management but be sure you have a user friendly and very robust package. Back in the day, AoWC had a crap-tastic panel but...I forget their name now...anyways, one of their competitiors had a really slick management interface that even let me modify the game configs w/o having to FTP (it was done in the background but I didn't actually have to FTP up and down the config manually).
6. Service Provider is key. You can't just say "x" region. You need to understand your market and find out who has the best bandwidth. I'll tell you now that anything Cogent is bad for gaming. Cogent bandwidth will be "ok" 80% of the time, it's the other 20% that'll piss your customers off. You want someone with plenty of different major ISPs. Level 3 and Internap are your best friends since they have pops and peering points pretty much everywhere. Proximity to your customers is good but just because your client and servers are in New York doesn't mean it'll be a sub 10 hop connection. Your customer might have to jump to Chicago or Virginia and u-turn back to New York based on your provider, their provider and the peering points in-between.
Dallas and Chicago are where most providers peer with one another with Kansas City, St. Louis and Atlanta quickly growing. San Jose/Santa Clara, Tacoma and Phoenix are your big peer points in the west while New York, Richmond and Miami are also hefty peering points in the east. Dallas and Chicago are safe bets, however, since you cover both east and west clients with relatively popular peering points and fairly close connections. You can branch out later but if you were to start a service in New York or San Jose, you're going to alienate a large chunk of your business (although to be fair, the east coast has a 3:1 advantage over the west in population, east = east of the mississippi.)
Are you going to manage the servers (update game code, apply security patches)? Are you going to harden the servers independant of the game itself (yes you will but will YOU do it or will someone else manage it for you). What happens if a server has a hardware failure? What's your sparing policy? What's your SLA on getting new hardware up and running? What's your refund policy if you can't meet your SLA. What are your TOA and AUP for within your game servers?
That's about 1/3 of what you have to think about. Sorry for the novel, in the WoW world, my post would definately qualify for "TLDR".
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11-28-2007, 11:02 AM #15Web Hosting Guru
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If you are seriously considering doing this then you will need to prepare a lot a head of time before you even get off the ground.
Experience matters a lot when it comes to GSP's and often if you don't play the games you won't be able to get into the mind frame that your customers are coming from.
Having done this to a small degree I feel that I have some points worth sharing.
Also you can could read: http://forums.theplanet.com/index.php?showtopic=71663