Server Advice?

#1

Quote:ability to run a very low requirement server (2-4 people)

Are you looking to run T3D server on the box? If so, I'd go with AWS. It's easy to use only the hours you need for testing, and pretty cheap for a dedicated box (they have Linux builds that you can configure with DB and web tools if you want).

#2 I use a Virtual Private Server as we run our game all the time on there, it's fine for just us devs on there and cheap too.

AWS is a great service if you only want to run the game every few days/weeks but can become more expensive if you need to run 24/7

#3 Ok thank you! I'll check those out and pick which seems to be the best for me!

#4 @Andy: Which host are you using?

#5 I'm using SolarVPS at the moment, would recommend them, I've never needed to speak to support other than at the start to ask them to open up some ports.

#6 For development of Minions of Mirth we run 1 Master-list server instance (MySQL-based) and 1 Virtual World server instance (SQLite&MySQL) on an in-house VMWare cluster (2 Dual-quad machines, each Fibre-channel'ed to a 14 drive Apple XServe RAID).

For Beta Test access for our QA testers we stage to 1 Beta Master Server instance (MySQL-based) on the same VMWare cluster, and use 1 in-house dedicated Dell PowerEdge server (SQLite&MySQL) for the Beta Virtual World.

For live production Minions of Mirth we talk with Counter-strike server leasing groups and use their recommendations for dedicated hosting providers to avoid latency issues (packet buffering, load balancing, excessive network equipment hops). We maintain 1 Live Master List server (MySQL) on the in-house VMWare cluster, 3 dedicated Virtual World servers (1 hosted in New York, 1 hosted in San Jose, and 1 in-house on a Dell PowerEdge - all SQLite/MySQL-based), 1 hosted IRC server instance, and a couple of hosted support and metric monitoring server instances scattered around.

Our live production Virtual Goods Web eStore is through a web hosting service commerce package and we PHP (and other tech/protocols) those goods to our Master List server for delayed distributed deployment to the players in the Virtual World instances.

Randel Reiss
Director Product Development
Prairie Games, Inc.
mailto:RandelR@PrairieGames.com

#7 If you dont need high bandwidth usage why not consider using and older PC to use as a dedicated server running in your own office, i mean, you could probably run it 24/7 for less than it would cost to run a cheap hosted VPS. You would also arguably have better server control too.

Sure this isnt necessarily the best choice for a commercial/live servers (that said ive seen a relatively successful small MMO run on an office located server with a dedicated net connection in the past)

#8 Bloodknight, your suggestion sounds the most practical in my financial situation, how would I go about creating the server I would run on the computer? I'm a little confused as to how it operates.