Servers for smartphone apps or games?

Cheerag Nundlall

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I am just curious which type of server running for smartphone apps or games? were they running on dedicated server or cloud server? for big games they will need a data center?
 

Efe Agbontaen

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I can answer this question cause this is actually my area of specialization :D.
To answer your question, it depends on what kind of App it is, but for majority of Apps, even a Shared Hosting platform will do.

Here's a case study of one of my Apps formerly here: Pin Pals Dating App. But now here: Pin Pals - Best dating site

It started as a mobile PIN sharing App for BlackBerry Messenger back when BlackBerry was popular. So it was a basic Social Network with just CRUD operations.

I hosted it on a 2GB HDD and 2GB Bandwidth Shared Hosting plan, and it was fine for about a year.

After a year, the user base grew and I started running out of bandwidth, so I upgraded to a 6GB HDD and 20GB Bandwidth plan. But at this time the growth was a lot faster so within 2-3 months, I started running out of Bandwidth again plus HDD this time.

I then realized it would cost me too much to keep upgrading my hosting plan since the App was 100% free.

So I migrated to Hostgator and used their Baby Plan with Unlimited SSD and Bandwidth. This served the App for years. The Bandwidth growth peaked at 500GB/Month.

Eventually BlackBerry died out and I had to rebuild the App for Android. But I had to step up the App due to competition. So I decided to Add the ability for users to Chat with Each other in App instead of on BBM.

At first, I used QuickBlox to handle Instant Messaging but due to the BB user base that still had my App, I was quickly running out of the free plan. Plus the messaging was not reliable.

That was when I decided to learn NodeJS and manually build a basic Chat Server from scratch that would focus more on reliability. I also realized I could not run a NodeJS App on Hostgator Shared Hosting plan or even most other Shared Hosting company.

And then VPS entered into the game. I got a $5 server from Digital Ocean. Was forced to learn some basic Server Administration just so I can setup all required servers (Apache/Nginx, MySQL, VS-FTP, Postfix etc). I was then able to run my NodeJS Chat server and that's where the App resides till this day.

So as you can see, for an App of that size, even a $5 VPS with 1GB RAM has been working perfectly fine. RAM usage is usually at 700-800MB. And 1GB in SWAP. (I have not had the time to optimize this server well).

Who knows, probably if I decide to add inApp Video Calls and I decide to develop the Media server locally, I might upgrade to a Dedicated Server.

I hope I answered your question well?
 

Cheerag Nundlall

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Cheerag Nundlall
To answer your question, it depends on what kind of App it is, but for majority of Apps, even a Shared Hosting platform will do.
I think that if it was a shared hosting then it is just for where to download apps and depending on number of visitors are visiting app or game page. AND we will not need a hosting in the case the app is stored on apple store or google play store? right?

I am also playing smartphone game and see that there are more users accessing to the game and thought it really need a big server to handle all requests to the game but not sure how to clarify that.
 

Efe Agbontaen

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AND we will not need a hosting in the case the app is stored on apple store or google play store? right?
It depends on what kind of App. If it is an App like:
  • Calculator
  • Calendar
  • File Manager
  • Dictionary...etc
Basically any App that does not need to contact your API.

If your App needs to do some sort of processing on a server, then you need to Host the API somewhere....

I am also playing smartphone game and see that there are more users accessing to the game and thought it really need a big server to handle all requests to the game but
The number of concurrent users you expect will determine how big your server should be
 

lastchancewell

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You can learn everything if you have desires and if the teacher is good. And even a child can play poker, but no one cancels experience and practice. If you plan to make money with poker, then it will take a lot of time. Please be patient. I can also advise you to play on pokerbroz. They now have cool bonuses for beginners, read the information on the site.
 
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