Optimize compute resources for multiplayer games: bare metal, cloud or hybrid?

We will not list why bare metal is better than cloud or vice-versa, nor the difference between virtualized machines (generally used by the cloud providers) and bare-metal machines or even dedicated servers as you probably know the most common ones such as noisy neighbors or hypervisor tax as described here. Instead, we’ll try to go a layer deeper and figure out what is most important for you developing a multiplayer game, list some things to look out for when selecting a provider and de-bunk some common find answers you’ll find on the internet when looking for the differences between cloud and bare metal for multiplayer games.  

So, there’s obviously pros and cons to both approaches, bare metal and cloud, for running a multiplayer game’s compute resources. Let’s start off by the basics and some factors to consider for both approaches: 

• Leveraging bare metal would mean running your game built on physical servers as opposed to virtual servers in the cloud (although the actual hardware for both tends to be the same). Bare metal in this case would tend to offer better performance since the hypervisor layer to virtualize the physical server is not running on the server. Therefore, allocate all resources for your game as it runs directly on the hardware. For fast-paced games with high-bandwidth requirements this is a good thing, for turn-based games, do factors such as hypervisor tax and noisy neighbors really matter?   
• Running your game with a cloud provider could mean that you get some benefits regarding scalability — virtual servers usually are quickly provisioned and resized as needed, allowing for scaling up and down. This can be useful if your multiplayer game has variable concurrent users, or peak usage times during the evenings or weekends. Yet, cloud servers can potentially have higher latency and less predictable performance than bare metal, depending on the workload and the actual service provider. 

Both pros and cons have become generally slim by today’s standards. Bare metal providers have become more flexible by provisioning their physical machines through their APIs, Terraform and other tools, whereas most cloud providers don’t scale as easily and limitlessly as we once thought, and the overhead of virtualization also does not usually bother anyone. 

So, with that, we’d reach the same conclusion as on most articles on the internet, where ultimately, the best option for you depends on your needs and constraints. In this case certain questions would guide your decision-making process. Examples include: What type of game are you building? What is the scale of your game and your budget? How much expertise do you have when it comes to infrastructure?  

We’d however, like to challenge that a bit and talk about some of the smart ways providers of both bare metal and cloud add value to their commodity product.