Dedicated Anandtech Gaming Server

[TechBoyJK]

Some of you may remember my recent post about getting a dedicated gaming server for anandtech.

I do some work for a large hosting company in St. Louis. We are in the Bandwidth Exchange Building, one of the largest Internet Meet Me points in the world. We have 3 Gige's and an OC 12, with 100 times that capacity at our fingertips. Everything is redundant. We are blending our gateways on BGP, and everything is Cisco equipment. We haven't gone down in four years. Anyways, not to sound like I'm selling the company, I'm going to talk to my boss about getting anandtech a dedicated gaming server, maybe at least for one month. However, I need to be somewhat tactful on how I approach my boss with this. He's busy and if I don't say it right, he won't go for it.

Here are some of my ideas and concerns

1. Use Anandtech Fanbase as a selling point. I'll be straight, my boss will want to see some benefits for this. This would have to be a formal arrangement between both parties. The reason I mentioned our capacity is to help explain our costs, etc.

2. Have weekly tournaments.

3. Free banner ads on Anandtech?

4. OK if server only ran from 7pm central to 6am central? Our bandwidth is much cheaper during those times.

5. How many players can we expect?

6. Who will manage the servers? We will get the machine up and running, but we won't dedicate any man hours towards managing the game server software.

7. Can we start with something like a dual P3 1Ghz with 1GB ram? Always SCSI

8. Can we get away without using a hardware firewall?

9. How can we brand the server with both Parties' Identities?

10. Should we form a committee for this?

11. I can only offer a 10Mbps port, at least for starters


This is all I can think of right now. I'd feel great if I could pull this off for this community. If anybody has any comments, ideas, advice, criticism, please let me know. I can have the server up within a day of getting my boss's approval.

 

[BlueWeasel]

Well, from what I've read, dedicated gaming servers are kind of hit or miss with AT'ers. It all depends on the game you're running.

Sysadmin tried to start a COD server, but literally no one was interested and it NEVER has any players on it. DeviousTrap started a UT 2K4 demo server and it appears to be going strong (it will probably gather steam with the retail release of UT 2K4 this month).

 

[TechBoyJK]

Yea, I'm thinking of something organized. Have a game schedule, post it on the board, etc. This way we aren't limited to an Unreal server, Battlefield, etc.

 

[TechBoyJK]

This might be a good way to start a DOOM 3 server.

 

[gregshin]

build it and they will come

 

[TechBoyJK]

hmmm... doom 3 server. yes.

 

[Ausm]

Originally posted by: gregshin
build it and they will come

That's what I thought

If you need any admin help LMK I would not mind providing that service for you.


Sysadmin

 

[TechBoyJK]

bmp

 

[DeviousTrap]

My answers - keep in mind this is only a opinion.

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK


1. Use Anandtech Fanbase as a selling point. I'll be straight, my boss will want to see some benefits for this. This would have to be a formal arrangement between both parties. The reason I mentioned our capacity is to help explain our costs, etc.

2. Have weekly tournaments. - Could be done but who will supply the prises, assuming you will not charge a enterance fee. If you do then this would not be a problem

3. Free banner ads on Anandtech? - Doubt it, as they are what keep this forum runing, however, Anand feel free to prove me wrong

4. OK if server only ran from 7pm central to 6am central? Our bandwidth is much cheaper during those times. - - This would probably be fine for week days, however, on weekendsd it would probably be better if it was avaliable during all hours. Also, this box will use a lot more processing power than bandwidth. You could easily get by with less than 100gb of bandwidth a month, which should not be quite costly for you.

5. How many players can we expect? 15-20 if the games are scheduled, more is possible but you need to keep in mind server limits.

6. Who will manage the servers? We will get the machine up and running, but we won't dedicate any man hours towards managing the game server software. - I would be glad to do it. I would probably suggest a Windows box for more compatibility with games, but I can manage a linux box also. I run the current Anandtech Game Server but would be glad to shut it down and help with this one as it would both benefit your company and the ATers needs.

7. Can we start with something like a dual P3 1Ghz with 1GB ram? Always SCSI - Plenty, as long as its a dual cpu machine.

8. Can we get away without using a hardware firewall? - Easily, this is not a mission critical machine and if a DDOS attack occurs or something similar the machine could easily be shut down.

9. How can we brand the server with both Parties' Identities?

10. Should we form a committee for this? - If you want. I suggest someone to be incharge of managing the box (being the main one in charge, and team of guys who could help with starting and stopping games / tournaments, when the leader cannot.

11. I can only offer a 10Mbps port, at least for starters - A game server does not need more than 10Mbps.

Again this is only my opinion. I would be more than willing to manage the box as I understand why you would not be able to. Also, I doubt that you will get any official Anandtech involvement.

 

[TechBoyJK]

good feedback. keep it coming so I can get a clearer picture on how to make this happen.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Glad its appreciated. There are probably a few members here who would vouch for me being able to deal with the server.
Few questions, Can you explain what you mean by question 9?Also, may I ask which hosting company you work for?

~Eric

 

[TechBoyJK]

cybercon.com

With 9, I was referring to how we could name the servers, etc. just so when someone was playing on the server they knew who sponsored it. This isn't a priority.

 

[DeviousTrap]

Originally posted by: TechBoyJK
cybercon.com

With 9, I was referring to how we could name the servers, etc. just so when someone was playing on the server they knew who sponsored it. This isn't a priority.

Would you let us host websites on the server? Maybe I could try to sell space on the server maybe I could get a small portion of the money and the restcould go to keeping the server up? Otherwise with just gameservers one does not even need nameservers.

 

[TechBoyJK]

i don't think anything other than games could be hosted on the server. Not too much money could be made before the "web hosting" aspect of the gameserver would overtake the game hosting side. Not only that, then we would be looking to provide bandwidth for something other than gaming. I would prefer to block port 80 on the server anyway. Honestly, I would like this server to perform as best as possible, for gaming.

I'm trying to find away to do this without having to harvest funds in return.

*edit for saying "not only that" twice in a row.