Microsoft Windows Server 2012Customer Solution Case Study

Leader of the Korean Game Industry and Service Quality IndexBuilding a Company-wide Integrated Test Server with Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V

OverviewCountry or Region: KoreaIndustry: EntertainmentCustomer ProfileNEXON is a global enterprise servicing more than 60 game titles in over 100 countries worldwide in the second quarter of 2012. It has around 77.4 million active monthly users.

Business SituationThe company's aim was to make sure that service quality is guaranteed before games are officially released by building an integrated test server infrastructure for all of the company’s services.

SolutionAs it was contemplating a large-scale integrated testing infrastructure, they had the opportunity to review the Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V technology early on.

Benefits Open platform, perfectly suited for game

testing Having the Know-how to Build an

Integrated Test Server More Stringent Pre-release Quality

Assurance Technical Support Becomes Transparent

“We were undecided between Hyper-V and vSphere for achieving the effect of giving separate physical test servers to various development teams and, at the same time, handle the test demand on the same infrastructure from the IT department’s point of view. But through the Windows Server 2012 RDP, we settled on Hyper-V.”

Cho Ju-hyeong, a team leader at NEXON

NEXON started running some of its integrated test servers in 2013 with the aim of enhancing the value of its quality management. With the gaming market expanding across online, mobile, TV and N-Screen, companies in this sector are now in a race against service providers from other fields, including those engaged in social networks and messaging services, to gain first-mover advantage. Expanding markets and increasing levels of competition within them are spurring gaming companies to invest greatly in platforms capable of delivering high-quality gaming while also developing the capacity to provision a stable service to users around the world. Seeking to position itself to benefit from this trend, NEXON embarked on a project to build a test server integrated on a company-wide level with a view to identifying bugs or performance bottlenecks prior to releasing new games. The test server is also designed to check such services as user authentication, billing, customer service and connections between the gaming operation and service management system in a more efficient way. In the process of reviewing the technologies available, NEXON found that Windows Server 2012 would bring them significant benefits, particularly in terms of licensing cost security, scalability and availability when building a large-scale private cloud environment. It thus opted to build its integrated test server using Windows Server 2012. Doing so would not only NEXON to test the quality of gaming built on various operating systems such as Linux, but it would also enabling the testing of a wide range of different types of infrastructure, including private, public and hybrid cloud computing.

SituationWith its company-wide integrated test server

implementation project successfully completed, NEXON brought the server online in early 2013. This integrated test server was built to detect bugs or performance issues prior to releasing new games. The new server also provides an environment for evaluating the connection between gaming operating systems and service management systems for usage authentication, billing and customer service. With such clear benefits being derived from it, NEXON’s company-wide integrated test server is now being bandied about as a case of best practice by key figures in the gaming industry. Back when MMORPG first went main attraction, Windows Server was still regarded as the standard, with Linux hot on its tail. NEXON’s choice of Windows Server 2012 reflects its desire to accommodate both Windows and Linux-based architectures to deliver a truly integrated test server capable of adapting to the changing landscape in gaming servers. Windows Server still accounts for about 80% in the gaming server development environment, a dominance which is all the more remarkable given the high level of market competition. That Windows Server has been able to maintain its dominance shows its strength in class, and indeed, the new integrated server provides NEXON with that flexibility to be able to accommodate this.

From early to mid-2000s, most gaming developments continued to employ Microsoft Server Platform in preference to others, primarily due to the ease of client/server development it affords, the well-organized development environment it delivers, and the well-developed ecosystem of developers and operators. Last but not least, Windows Server offers an excellent thread handling mechanism of IOCP. In this regard, Windows Server solidified its status as the No1 gaming server, synonymous with a renaissance in online gaming. Some companies did attempt to partially move their servers to

being Linux-based, but due to difficulties in high-cost and issues around getting the right employees in, Windows Server maintained its dominance throughout the late 2000s. With the explosive growth of the online gaming market after 2010, the gaming industry was given another chance with what’s become known as N-Screen. With the market expanding its domain across PCs, mobiles and TVs, alternatives capable of implementing gaming environments that are independent of OS, such as HTML5, emerged, leading many gaming companies to try and get the new technology to work for them. The industry was caught in the grip of venture fever with a seemingly unstoppable surge of startups developing games across various genres. The intense competition in the market is meaning different players are trying to target specific niches, including for gaming servers. With so much still in the air, NEXON inevitably wanted to position itself best for when things settled. Adopting Windows Server 2012 allowed it to do that. The chief reason business is choosing Windows Server 2013includes technical features, and it delivers substantially on this front. The OS is in fact a massive leap forward, being the first cloud OS and one capable of supporting heterogeneous platforms, including Linux.

SolutionIn late 2012, NEXON embarked on a project to

build a company-wide integrated test server which could be used in QA (Quality Assurance) to root out bugs or performance bottlenecks. As such, the integrated test server was designed to fit neatly after initial service development, but before its official launch. NEXON’s environment had previously consisted overwhelmingly of development, staging, and production. Its IT department suddenly faced a new mission: to include integrated testing between development and staging. As with any mission, achieving it was no straight-forward matter. Suffice to say, it was

25

not as simple as running a few test servers in the virtual environment.

NEXON’s IT department has been building virtual server infrastructure for web development, advertising, portals, and billing since the mid-2000s and, as of 2012, it runs over 300 virtual machines. With its long history of employing virtualization technologies, NEXON’s IT department is well-aware of the technical limitations such technologies pose. “High availability, scalability, and security are prerequisites for using virtualization for core business,” said Cho Jae-hyeong, Team Leader at NEXON. “However, what we found was that existing virtualization technologies were simply not suitable for the task of running core business. For that, what’s required are shared storage devices to deliver high availability. Unfortunately, scalability and performance could not be guaranteed due to the limitations on CPU and memory allocation for each virtual machine. NEXON also employs a security policy which requires that each of its services runs on a separate domain. On the existing virtual environment, it was not possible to build independent environments for multiple domains with hundreds of virtual machines on high-performance servers”.

As the IT department continued with its research into building a company-wide integrated test server infrastructure, it found that Windows Server 2012 would be a perfect solution. Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition not only supports an almost limitless number of virtual instances when building a large-scale test infrastructure, but also meets every need of NEXON in terms of delivering high-availability and scalability. Team Leader Cho Jae-hyeong explained: "We chose Windows Server 2012 over VMWare because of its cost-efficiency and high scalability”.

The IT department, suitably appraised, then conducted an empirical evaluation of both high

availability and scalability to gauge whether Windows Server 2012 would be able to help overcome the inconvenience caused by conventional virtualization technologies.

“Windows Server 2012 allows the allocation of up to 64 vCPUs per virtual machine,” said Team Leader Cho Ju-hyeong. “This means that virtualization can be applied to a wider range of applications. Windows Server 2008 R2 only supported up to 4 vCPUs, and VMWare only supported to up 32 vCPUs. That was why we were so hesitant when it came to virtualizing core servers. But now we don’t need to worry about performance and scalability.”

What concerned the IT department most in building the integrated test server infrastructure was the network virtualization. Given the nature of the integrated test server infrastructure, which has to run hundreds of virtual machines and allow for expansion of resources with the addition of new development projects, network virtualization technology was necessary to run a single integrated infrastructure while keeping management simple. The department had to use some trial and error in the virtual switching of Windows Server 2012 as it included a multi-tenant concept, quite unlike existing virtual switching functions. Fortunately, after some research, the department was able to build a virtual server infrastructure that was independent of network settings. This feat was achieved through locating various virtual switches on a subnet for each host.

The deployment of Windows Server 2012 amongst NEXON’s already impressive arsenal of infrastructure is expected to usher in a sea change across the company.

NEXON plans to gradually bring all the various virtualization servers using Hyper-V, VMWare, and Xen, together into its virtual cloud. Firstly, the company plans to start migrating the existing Windows Server 2008 R2 Hyper-V virtual machines to the 2012 version environment. There

35

is also a long-term plan to migrate the CentOS and Debian Linux virtual machines running on VMWare. NEXON’s IT department plans to test running Linux on Hyper-V with BMT and then work on a gradual migration program, provided there are no performance and stability issues.

“When ESXi became free on VMWare in 2008, we expanded our business virtualization, particularly for the development servers,” said Team Leader Cho Jae-hyeong. “ESXi doesn’t allow various virtualization technologies, but Hyper-V allows us to use all functions without limits at equally low costs. Therefore, unless some other mitigating reasons present themselves; we are set to move the development servers over to Windows Server 2012 as well.”

Benefits

Open platform, perfectly suited for game testingWindows Server 2012 is a perfect solution for

NEXON’s company-wide integrated test server. With the seemingly inexorable rise of both Windows and Linux-based gaming platforms, Windows Server 2012 is an ideal integrated test server, particularly since Windows Server 2012 Hyper-V supports virtual machines thanks to having various Linux distributions installed. That’s not all. Windows Server 2012 also proposes a new standard in the development of gaming-related applications. What NEXON focused was that Windows Azure can handle applications built in various languages, including .NET, PHP and Java. NEXON can even test a gaming operating environment in which on-premise and public cloud service are combined by simply connecting its physical integrated test server to Windows Azure. Thus, Windows Server 2012 has high scalability and openness, ideal for both the needs of both today and tomorrow vis-à-vis application development and distribution.

More Stringent Pre-release Quality AssuranceBuilding the integrated test server infrastructure

on a private cloud was highly significant for NEXON’s IT department. Compared to the current private cloud, which was used for hosting development and some other web service servers,

the new private cloud would be much larger and prove much more useful. The high degree of emphasis that’s placed on having test server infrastructure that’s integrated is because, in a nutshell, its presence is directly correlated to that of customer satifaction. For this reason, the IT department is currently considering adopting System Center 2012. Infrastructure administrators as well as the QA department welcome the use of Windows Server 2012 for the private cloud and System Center 2012.

“We had the development team and the QA team work closely together from the planning stage of the integrated test server infrastructure. Once we decided to use Windows Server 2012, it was suggested that we also use System Center so that performance bottlenecks could be identified in the testing stage using Application Performance Management (APM). The developers really loved the idea.” said Team Leader Cho Ju-heyong. Everyone in operations and development welcomed System Center 2012 since it would not only allow transparent and rapid management of hundreds of virtual machines, but also make it possible to perform tests on every aspect of the system, from the end user environment right through to coding.

Rapid test of the latest gaming-operating strategy

The richer online, mobile, TV and N-Screen offerings in the gaming environment are ushering in a new kind of gaming. To respond, gaming companies are endeavoring to change their gaming platform operations through using various compositions, primarily either private, public or hybrid cloud. Windows Server 2012 and Windows Azure give NEXON the versatility and flexibility it needs to really thrive in this context.

Technical Support Becomes Transparent Having used Windows Server 2012 for the

company-wide integrated test server infrastructure, NEXON’s IT department expects the maintenance of virtualization technologies to become easier at a corporate level. Should there be an issue, there is now no need to call separate solution providers to identify causes or respond to network, virtualization, or OS issues.

“As we standardize the core virtual environment with the Hyper-V environment, one advantage we

45

are seeing from an administrator’s point of view is that we only need to deal with one partner for maintenance and fault processing. In a Hyper-V environment, we only need to speak to Microsoft to get access to support for OS, virtualization, and even the network. This definitely makes maintenance faster and much, much easier”, said Team Leader Cho Ju-hyeong.

Microsoft Server Product PortfolioFor more information about the Microsoft server product portfolio, go to:www.microsoft.com/servers

55

For More InformationFor More InformationFor more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers in the United States and Canada who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:www.microsoft.com

For more information about Nexon’s ervices, call 82-1588-7701 or visit the website at: www.nexon.com:

This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.

Document published November 2012

Software and Services Microsoft Server Product Portfolio

− Windows Server 2012 Datacenter Edition