kvh whitepaper: how to optimize your it infrastructure to maximize the gaming experience

Copyright© 2012 by KVH Co. LTD

All Rights Reserved. Not to be copied or reproduced without express permission of KVH Co LTD

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How to Optimize Your IT Infrastructure

to Maximize the Gaming Experience

Insights for gaming companies on how to effectively adopt the right IT solutions to generate more customers, revenues, and business efficiency

WHITE PAPER: KVH Media and Gaming Solutions

Table of Contents

2 Introduction

2 Ensure Fastest Time to Market

3 Meet Growing Demand for High-speed Gaming

4 Leverage Scalable Infrastructure Solutions

5 Conclusion

6 About KVH

How to Optimize Your IT Infrastructure to Maximize the Gaming Experience

Copyright© 2012 by KVH Co., Ltd. All Rights Reserved

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Introduction

Competition in Asia’s online gaming market is

fierce and presents increasing demands on

companies in the gaming industry to deliver more

entertaining, unique, and interactive games while

seeking cost efficiencies in software development

and distribution. The sheer size and continuous

growth of this market also presents the challenge

of standing out among competitors and grabbing

consumers’ attention. For example, Japan has a

multi-billion dollar social gaming market and over

39 million active gamers1, over half of the entire

South Korean population played online games in

2011, and the Chinese market revenue of

browser-based games is expected to grow by

over 40% in 20122.

With this continuous and rapid increase in demand

comes the need among game developers and

suppliers for IT solutions that enable them to deliver

new games as quickly as possible, minimize lag

and downtime, and maximize engagement with

their end-users.

This whitepaper aims to outline how gaming

companies can leverage high-speed, low-latency

networks and flexible IT infrastructure to meet

these needs.

1株式会社メディアクリエイト 2011, ゲームユーザ人口は 3,900万人。ゲーム業界の 10 年を俯瞰する白書、「ゲーム産業 Decade」発刊,

ValuePress!, viewed 22 May 2012, <http://www.value-press.com/pressrelease/88532>. 2 Gaudiosi, John 2012, Asia Leads The Way In Global Online Gaming Trends, Forbes, viewed 20 September 2012, <http://www.forbes.com/sites/johngaudiosi/2012/09/17/asia-leads-the-way-in-global-online-gaming-trends/>

Ensure Fastest Time to Market

Asia-based gaming companies are quickly

establishing a solid global presence and customer

base. In Japan, Gree reached record high net

sales of 158.2 billion yen (approx. US$2 billion) for

FY20123 , showing 147% YoY growth, and DeNA

reached sales revenues of 47.6 billion yen (approx.

US$608.8 million) for Q1 2012 alone 4 . As

competition heightens with gaming companies

striving to stay ahead of the curve by releasing

games before customer demands change and

evolve, speed to market and agility have become

key factors for success.

Consequently, scalable cloud environments that

allow companies to flex their IT environment as

demand requires will enable the delivery of more

videos, music, games, and other media

on-demand, resulting in faster and more flexible

ways for improved profits and competitive

advantage.

Today, the range of service providers that can

meet these demands is few, though growing.

Gaming organizations should ensure they

leverage an agile service provider that can not

only customize a solution to meet their particular

3 GREE, Inc. 2012, Financial Results for the Fourth Quarter of the Fiscal Year Ended June 30, 2012, viewed 20 September 2012, <http://v3.eir-parts.net/EIR/View.aspx?template=ir_material&sid=17752&code=3632>

4 DeNA 株式会社ディー・エヌ・エー 2012, 2012 年度第 1 四半期業績のご報告 , viewed 20 September 2012,

<http://v3.eir-parts.net/EIRNavi/DocumentNavigator/ENavigatorBody.aspx?cat=ir_material&sid=17624&code=2432&ln=ja&tlang=ja&tcat=ir_material&disp=simple&groupsid=5343>



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needs, but also implement that solution swiftly and

smoothly with minimal disruption to their business

processes. The faster the IT infrastructure can be

implemented, the faster the games can be taken

to market.

Meet Growing Demand for

High-speed Gaming

Asia is the global leader in average bandwidth

speeds. South Korea, Japan, and Hong Kong

showed the fastest average bandwidth speeds in

2012, with South Korea reaching an average

speed of 15.7 Mbps in Q1 2012 (refer to tables

below), a significant lead in front of the 2.6 Mbps

global average. While these countries are

pioneering high-speed online connectivity, many

other Asian markets are quickly catching up and

showing tremendous year over year improvements

in bandwidth speed, including Malaysia at 84%,

Singapore at 47%, Thailand at 38%, and Taiwan at

36%.

Any company in the online gaming industry will

undoubtedly need to understand and be able to

effectively address the need and growing

expectations for high-speed connectivity and

media downloads, as well as the resulting

extremely low tolerance among consumers for lag.

As competition is fierce, gamers will easily switch to

a newer, more engaging game if left to wait for

even a second or two too long.

For gaming companies to retain their end-users

and prolong the use of their games as much as

possible, they need to leverage high-speed,

low-latency networks that can accommodate

high amounts of high-speed traffic and

unpredictable peaks in bandwidth demand.

2 Average Measured Connected Speed by Country

(Source: Akamai)

2 Peak Internet speeds of Asian countries

(Source: Akamai)



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International gaming companies, in particular,

need to ensure the physical network between

them and their customers is as short and fast as

possible to reduce network latency. For example,

for China-based gaming companies targeting

Japan-based gamers, although leveraging a

China-based network provider may seem simpler

to find and work with, the network will span from

China to Japan before reaching the end-user,

which would slow down the gaming experience,

potentially driving the customer away and

minimizing the chance of them recommending

the game to friends. Meanwhile, a Japan-based

network provider will minimize network latency

and optimize the end-user experience, as well as

provide a greater reach across Japan.

Furthermore, international gaming companies will

need their service provider to be able to support

their network services with reliable high compute

power that can manage, process, and deliver

high volumes of data traffic at high speeds. This will

add to a smoother, more engaging, and more

enjoyable user experience. Looking at the bottom

line, being able to deliver faster connectivity will

enable faster downloads, promote more online

activity, and lead to greater revenues.

Leverage Scalable

Infrastructure Solutions

When launching a new game, particularly in the

fast-moving and rapidly evolving online gaming

market, it can be difficult to determine the

expected success or uptake of a game and,

therefore, how much server space, bandwidth,

and security is necessary to manage this traffic.

Purchasing, implementing, and managing an

extensive server environment entails high initial

and on-going costs, and also requires an on-site,

on-demand team of experts that can attend to

the servers regularly and independently address

power outages, failures, issues that arise in times of

natural disasters, and more. For most gaming

companies that aim to focus their efforts, staff,

and resources on developing and delivering

industry-leading games, this is a very costly and

inefficient option.

Flexible and reliable infrastructure-as-a-service

(IaaS) and cloud solutions provide gaming

companies with an IT environment that allows for

fluctuations in traffic and can securely handle high

volumes of data, even during peaks in demand.

By outsourcing these operations, companies can

make significant savings on infrastructure costs as

they eliminate the extra expenses of

over-purchasing infrastructure in times of low

demand, and also save the time and business

productivity wasted on waiting for more servers to

be purchased, implemented, and set up when

demand is unexpectedly high. In the latter case,

not having enough compute power to manage

data traffic can easily lead to major lag and/or

downtime, which will inevitably drive away existing

and potential players.

Ideally, the service provider will be able to support

their IaaS and cloud services with reliable security



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services, 24 x 7 monitoring and service desk

support, extensive managed services, and

professional services for a complete and optimal

end-to-end solution. For international organizations,

bilingual capabilities in their language and the

local language that exist across their service

providers’ organizational structure, from the

service desk and operations to the sales and

management teams, will enable smooth utilization

of the solutions and ensure that issues are handled

as swiftly as possible to minimize any negative

impact to their company and services in cases of

incidents.

Conclusion

Gaming companies are increasingly being faced

with the challenges associated with high

competition, expensive infrastructure costs,

growing consumer expectations on internet and

download speeds, and a lack of internal resources

to manage complex IT operations and

management.

The most cost-efficient and effective way to

address these challenges is to adopt integrated

and customized IT solutions that address the exact

needs of the company and their expected needs

with upcoming product launches, a low-latency

international network that allows for a smooth

online gaming experience on an international

scale, and flexible IaaS and cloud solutions that

can effectively handle fluctuations in demand

and ensure mission-critical information is

processed within a highly secure IT environment.

For international companies, the challenges are

greater and come with higher risks, especially for

those newly entering Asia’s unique consumer

market and product demand is unpredictable. As

well as needing multilingual support offered in the

local language and the language commonly

used internally, gaming companies should look to

service providers that have a strong local

presence in their target markets, including locally

based scalable infrastructure and on-site

engineers to ensure optimal product performance,

minimize network latency between the

company’s IT environment and end-users, and

allow for maximum flexibility and cost-efficiency

throughout peaks and fluctuations in product

demand and data traffic.



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About KVH

KVH is an Asia Pacific IT Services and Data Center Services Provider established in Japan. KVH’s

Information Delivery Platform delivers integrated cloud and network solutions and best-in-class service to

its customers. KVH owns infrastructure and provides services that enable clients to store, process, protect

and deliver their vital business information. KVH provides IT Services, Cloud Services, Data Center Services,

Managed Network Services, and Professional Services.

KVH has a presence in Tokyo, Yokohama, Osaka, Hong Kong, Shanghai, Singapore, Seoul/ Busan, and

Chicago, and serves over 1,900 customers in broad industry segments such as financial services,

manufacturing, media, gaming, and e-commerce. More information on KVH can be found at

www.kvh.co.jp/en/

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