Shockbyte and OVHcloud
Services deployed

+100,000
services deployed
around the world

Attacks mitigated

100%
DDoS attacks mitigated
each month

Players worldwide

+25 million
players
worldwide

Executive summary

“If you’ve played on a Minecraft server, you’ve almost certainly played on a Shockbyte server.”

Mitch Smith, CEO & Founder, Shockbyte

Since their launch in 2013, Shockbyte have evolved from hosting a custom Minecraft game for Australian gamers, to one of the largest providers of game hosting services in the world, with more than 25 million gamers regularly connecting to their servers. Since their earliest days, internationalising their business has been a long-term goal, and OVHcloud has been a constant partner in this regard, delivering and maintaining the world-class bare-metal servers they build their services on, and supporting their ongoing expansion round the world.

The challenge

Having previously managed Asia-Pacific’s busiest Minecraft server, with over a million players, the Shockbyte team were well aware of the unique challenges that come with delivering game hosting services at scale. Based on this hands-on experience, they were keen to design their infrastructure to meet these challenges head-on, in order to provide both a great service to customers, and a great gaming experience to end users.

First of all, both professional gamers and hobbyists demand exceptional performance from their servers, with the lowest possible latency. This makes quality hardware, a high level of automation, and the ability to geolocate servers essential.

Secondly, having already experienced the damage that DDoS attacks could do at a different business, and been repeatedly unsatisfied with the protection offered by a previous provider, a robust Anti-DDoS solution was vital.

Finally, scalability was a key concern, as since day one, Shockbyte had planned on taking their hosting business global. Their ideal provider would therefore not only operate datacentres in all key locations, but be able to provide proactive support as Shockbyte entered new markets.

The solution

Shockbyte decided to deploy their hosting services on OVHcloud Game servers, taking full advantage of the raw power offered by a dedicated bare-metal solution. 

Additional servers are used to distribute game software amongst the various nodes and automate updates. This is supported by the OVHcloud API, which is used to automate specific processes, and provide a range of tools to staff and customers. For example, whenever new nodes are added to Shockbyte’s infrastructure, the OVHcloud API detects them automatically, and adds them to the monitoring system. Similarly, IPs are automatically migrated between nodes and assigned to customers whenever necessary, virtually eliminating the need for routine network management.

“Something we love about OVHcloud is the high degree of automation, and the extensive API. It’s very rare that we even need to contact support, because we have access to virtually all of the tools we need.”

Mitch Smith, CEO & Founder, Shockbyte

 

Shockbyte infrastructure diagram in OVHcloud

 

The result

The high level of automation at OVHcloud datacentres meant that Shockbyte were able to deploy their server infrastructure near-instantly, and start managing it straight away. These benefits were extended to customers, who appreciated the ease with which they could manage their servers autonomously. They could launch their games effortlessly via the Shockbyte’s own control panel, regardless of their level of technical knowledge.

In particular, OVHcloud’s Anti-DDoS solution quickly proved its worth, ensuring Shockbyte have never experienced an outage related to a DDoS attack, even as their infrastructure has expanded. Further protection is provided by the OVHcloud firewall, while automated interventions have ensured downtime is kept to the absolute minimum.

“Our account manager, Bharani, has been fantastic. He is proactive in communication and keeping us informed of changes at OVHcloud, and his advice has proven invaluable as we’ve expanded.”

Mitch Smith, CEO & Founder, Shockbyte

With the support of their dedicated account manager, this success has continued as Shockbyte has expanded into new locations around the world, with servers now deployed in the following OVHcloud datacentres:

  • Sydney, Australia
  • Singapore
  • Quebec, Canada
  • Virginia, USA
  • Oregon, USA
  • London, UK
  • Gravelines, France
  • Roubaix, France
  • Germany
  • Poland

OVHcloud’s 120 second deployment time has been essential in this regard, allowing Shockbyte to take a highly agile approach to meeting customer requirements, and expanding their global reach, not just in terms of entering new locations, but deploying additional servers on an as-needed basis, to accommodate their busiest periods each year. This is mirrored by the ongoing expansion of the OVHcloud global presence – with Shockbyte planning to utilise the entire network of datacentres.

The partnership with OVHcloud has allowed Shockbyte to go from strength to strength, continuing to scale up, even as many of the original providers of Minecraft servers are shutting down. Each year, they launch new products and new games, with plans currently in place for a mobile app, to allow end users to manage their servers remotely. And as they continue to innovate, they will do so on a foundation of OVHcloud servers.