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Case Studies Archive - Gcore https://gcore.com/case-studies/feed/ Official Gcore CDN and Cloud Blog Thu, 21 Nov 2024 17:11:55 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.7.1 fan.at expands audience reach and boosts subscription revenue by 133% https://gcore.com/case-studies/fan-at/ Thu, 21 Nov 2024 11:00:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=32661 fan.at is a sports broadcaster and streaming platform for football and handball sporting events. The company’s website and mobile app offer sports fans hundreds of live streams of men’s, women’s, and youth games, plus on-demand videos, personalized feeds, highlights, news, voting, live ticker, player statistics, and match results. Viewers can enjoy live streams and replays of games from major leagues and championships like the Bundesliga, Premier League, and Gold Cup. With video content from 50,000 games played by 15,000 teams per season, fan.at delivers high-volume broadcasts to an engaged and growing viewer base.

Lacking scalability to support multi-stream delivery

fan.at wanted to meet the growing demand for more game coverage, expanding beyond major national leagues to include smaller regional clubs and junior leagues. The company faced a significant challenge in adding these live streams. “Our previous streaming partner could not support our plans to scale, so we initially brought the technology in-house. This meant that we needed to establish a new streaming setup and supporting infrastructure under tight deadlines,” said Raphael Hollenstein, Senior Software Engineer at fan.at.

While the company had automated cameras installed at football and handball venues to record games, it lacked the necessary infrastructure to efficiently ingest, transcode, and deliver multiple streams to its growing audience. This prompted the team to explore external solutions. “When we spoke to providers, many couldn’t offer the functionality we needed, like graphical overlays and sponsor inserts, while others were simply too expensive for managing multiple simultaneous streams. It wasn’t a scalable option,” explained Hollenstein.

fan.at turned to Gcore for a solution that could support its current and future growth plans, attracted by features like free encoding, which significantly reduces costs. Gcore offered all the essential functionality, including simultaneous live streaming of multiple matches, video-on-demand (VOD), the ability to add sponsor inserts and overlays, and the option to create and edit video clips using the API. fan.at selected Gcore Video Streaming and CDN due to its high-quality, low-latency performance, scalability, and global reach—all of which were essential for supporting the broadcaster’s expansion plans and meeting the demands of additional streams and a larger audience.

Delivering game-changing sports coverage to a global audience

fan.at integrated Gcore Video Streaming and CDN into its existing workflow, enabling a smooth transition that strengthened its streaming capabilities without disruption. “The Gcore implementation was seamless, and the platform provides everything we need in one place, from live ingest to low-latency global delivery,” said Hollenstein. “It’s been a game-changer, allowing us to focus on scaling our content without the technical hurdles.”

Using Gcore’s fast and flexible CDN, fan.at can deliver large, continuous data streams with minimal buffering and latency for an uninterrupted viewing experience. “With Gcore, we no longer have to worry about transcoding our media,” said Hollenstein. “Gcore’s solution automatically converts video files between formats so that our content is always delivered at the highest quality and accessible to all viewers, regardless of internet stability, bandwidth, resolution, or screen size.”

With the right technology foundations in place, fan.at could install over 130 additional cameras at sports venues, successfully expanding coverage of smaller regional club games. The efficient management of these additional streams by Gcore made the expansion process simple and hassle-free for the team.

Meeting customer demand for these games unlocked new financial opportunities for the broadcaster, “By expanding our game coverage, we’ve seen a surge in new subscriptions, leading to a 133% increase in revenue within just one quarter, which is a great result,” Hollenstein notes.

Elevating live sports viewing experience and fan engagement

Fast clip creation is crucial for enriching the game experience and broadening audience reach on social media. “We use the API to create instant highlight videos from live streams, which is exactly what we needed,” said Hollenstein. “We can produce clips almost instantaneously, which is crucial when managing up to 300 cameras during peak weekends.” The ability to create short videos for social media has also helped to grow brand awareness and interaction. “Within four months of implementing Gcore, social media engagement with video content rose by 43%, and video views on Instagram increased by 64%,” added Hollenstein.

Gcore enables fan.at to create customizable graphical overlays, superimposing information like scores, player stats, and logos directly onto the footage. This feature offers fans additional context that complements the on-field action and improves the viewing experience. The broadcaster can also insert HTML overlays like sponsor banners, alerts, and a time clock into live streams, enhancing visual appeal and engagement.

Streamlining broadcast operations and reducing streaming costs

fan.at streamlined operations and reduced costs by consolidating its streaming infrastructure with Gcore’s integrated transcoding and VOD storage solutions, eliminating the need for multiple providers. “We’ve seen a 13% reduction in VOD storage costs and an 85% decrease in transcoding expenses compared to our previous providers,” noted Hollenstein. Additionally, Gcore’s automated video streaming and production workflows saved the engineering team 500 working hours over four months, further enhancing operational efficiency.

Continued innovation to grow and engage a diverse audience

By partnering with Gcore, fan.at has successfully expanded its broadcast capabilities beyond major leagues to include coverage of football games from smaller clubs, reaching a wider audience. The collaboration enabled the broadcaster to meet growing demand, optimize streaming performance, and enhance viewer engagement. Looking ahead, fan.at plans to rely on Gcore to add live commentary, innovate further with video editing, and explore new interactive features to continue delivering high-quality entertainment to an ever-growing audience.

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Fawkes Games Thwarts DDoS Attacks for Seamless Gaming Experiences https://gcore.com/case-studies/fawkes-games/ Tue, 27 Aug 2024 07:00:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=31467 Founded in 2022, Fawkes Games Ltd is a European indie gaming studio known for publishing popular massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs) such as Shaiya and Last Chaos. The company’s mission is to breathe new life into forgotten games and reignite passion within their communities. When faced with significant cybersecurity challenges, Fawkes partnered with Gcore to implement a robust DDoS protection solution, ensuring exceptional gaming experiences for players worldwide.

Rising Popularity Attracts Persistent Cyber Threats

Fawkes offers end-to-end game operations services, including hosting, community building, user acquisition, retention, and streamlining user feedback. In 2023, the company faced a series of sophisticated DDoS attacks, resulting in service disruptions and a decline in player satisfaction. The attacks began as persistent short bursts and escalated into vast connection floods, peaking at 2 Tbps. The company’s existing security provider was unable to manage the scale and multi-vector nature of these attacks, which bypassed conventional security measures, causing significant disruption to the company’s operations.

“From the moment we went live, our servers were under constant threat. We were bombarded with attacks that overwhelmed our infrastructure and affected gameplay. The attacks demanded a significant portion of our resources, with up to 30% of our engineering time dedicated to DDoS mitigation alone,” explains Nico, Operations Director at Fawkes.

The attacks not only strained the company’s resources but also jeopardized its reputation for delivering stable and immersive gaming environments.

Tailored Countermeasures to Combat Sophisticated DDoS Attacks

Fawkes needed a robust security solution that could handle persistent and constantly evolving DDoS attacks. After evaluating various options, the company selected Gcore as the ideal partner to bolster its security posture. Gcore’s distributed network infrastructure and advanced technologies, including its user datagram protocol (UDP) challenge-response system, aligned perfectly with the team’s requirements for neutralizing large-scale DDoS attacks.

“Gcore’s features enabling us to limit connections per IP and implement user challenge protections were exactly what we needed,” comments Ivan, Technical Director at Fawkes.

Deploying Gcore DDoS Protection marked a turning point for Fawkes. Gcore developed a tailored defense strategy with protocol-specific countermeasures that were integrated into Fawkes’ infrastructure using a proxy server. The integration process was seamless and efficient, minimizing disruptions and quickly fortifying the company’s defenses.

Mitigating DDoS Attacks with Ease and Increasing Operational Efficiency

The results were immediate and impactful, both for the company and its global gaming community. With Gcore DDoS Protection in place, Fawkes successfully thwarted multiple botnet attacks. Gcore’s mitigation systems effectively neutralized these attacks before they ever reached Fawkes’ infrastructure, ensuring that services remained flawless and uninterrupted.

“Since implementing Gcore, we’ve successfully mitigated massive DDoS attacks without our players experiencing any disruption, underscoring the exceptional performance and reliability of our services,” says Nico.

The implementation of Gcore DDoS Protection not only ensured service stability but also marked a significant improvement in operational efficiency at Fawkes. The reduction in time spent on DDoS mitigation freed up valuable resources for game development and community engagement initiatives.

“With Gcore, we’ve achieved a newfound stability in our operations, which has undoubtedly enhanced the gaming experience of our player community,” comments Ivan.

A Strategic Partner to Stay Ahead of Security Threats

The strategic collaboration between Fawkes and Gcore extends beyond immediate problem-solving. Through regular updates and strategic discussions, Gcore proactively assists Fawkes in staying ahead of potential cybersecurity threats.

“Open communication with Gcore, including during attacks, provides us with peace of mind and confidence in our security measures,” concludes Nico.

Gcore has enabled Fawkes to overcome complex cybersecurity challenges, secure game operations, and reinforce its commitment to providing an outstanding gaming experience to player communities worldwide. Looking ahead, this partnership underscores the critical role of advanced cybersecurity in the ever-evolving landscape of online gaming.

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Revolutionizing Online Education in India: The Success Story of FliQi and Gcore Collaboration https://gcore.com/case-studies/fliqi/ Wed, 26 Jul 2023 19:19:59 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=7994 Online education has become a cornerstone for knowledge acquisition in the fast-paced, digital-first era. However, ensuring seamless content delivery and interaction can pose significant challenges for EdTech platforms. This is the story of how FliQi, a leading Indian EdTech platform, overcame these hurdles with the help of Gcore, a premier provider of video streaming infrastructure.

FliQi: Challenges Faced

As an innovative educational platform, FliQi’s mission was to provide affordable, quality education to every student, regardless of geographical location. Their unique LPAR (Learn, Practice, Analyze, and Recommendation) model aimed to ensure the long-term retention of concepts by incorporating tests at the end of every lecture. However, despite their commitment and innovative approach, they faced a few daunting challenges:

  • Scalability: FliQi’s rapid growth led to an increasing need for infrastructure that could support millions of learners simultaneously.
  • Latency: Real-time interaction between learners and educators is critical in an online learning environment. However, FliQi struggled with latency issues, impacting the user experience.
  • Cost Management: FliQi needed a cost-effective solution to deliver high-quality video content without escalating operational costs.
  • Ease of Access: With a diverse user base accessing content from various devices and bandwidth environments, FliQi needed to ensure universal accessibility and usability.
FliQi online learning platform

Gcore’s Solution

Recognizing Gcore’s robust video streaming infrastructure, FliQi decided to embark on a collaborative journey to address these challenges:

  • Scalable Infrastructure: Gcore’s platform allowed FliQi to scale seamlessly, accommodating an increase from a single viewer to over 100 million active viewers worldwide. This capacity ensured that FliQi’s growth and expanding user base never encountered limitations on their learning journey.
  • Low-latency Streaming: With Gcore’s infrastructure, FliQi provides real-time, low-latency video streaming. This feature enhanced the interactive learning experience by enabling students to follow lectures in real-time and interact smoothly.
  • Cost Efficiency: Gcore’s pricing model allowed FliQi only to pay for the exact amount of minutes streamed, reducing costs without compromising video quality. This flexible and affordable approach enabled FliQi to manage its financial resources more effectively.
  • Universal Accessibility: Gcore’s platform ensured easy and instant access to content across various devices and bandwidth environments. This facilitated a user-friendly experience for FliQi’s diverse user base, making quality education accessible.

Impacts of the Collaboration

The synergy between Gcore and FliQi revolutionized the online educational experience for students across India. By harnessing Gcore’s powerful streaming platform, FliQi could provide a seamless and engaging learning experience, ensuring their content was accessible, secure, and tailored to their users’ needs.

FliQi harnessed the power of Gcore’s technology in several ways:

  • Live Streams: FliQi uses Gcore for live classes, providing real-time, interactive learning experiences.
  • Video Hosting: Utilizing Gcore’s infrastructure, FliQi ensured seamless, high-quality video streaming for its users.
  • Video-on-Demand (VOD): Live classes were recorded simultaneously for later access, ensuring flexible learning opportunities for students and enhancing the reach and utility of every session conducted.

Conclusion

The success of the Gcore and FliQi collaboration illustrates the transformative power of innovative technology in education. It exemplifies how a robust video streaming infrastructure can address traditional challenges in online learning, facilitating an improved, interactive, and inclusive educational experience. The partnership between Gcore and FliQi highlights their strengths and underscores such collaborations’ potential in revolutionizing online education. As we move forward, this collaborative model serves as an inspiration, marking the way toward a more dynamic and engaging future of learning.

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How Sandbox Interactive Uses Gcore’s Cloud for Expanding Albion Online in Asia-Pacific Region https://gcore.com/case-studies/albion-cloud/ Tue, 18 Jul 2023 02:46:37 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=5958 Sandbox Interactive is a Berlin-based game development studio that specializes in creating massively multiplayer online role-playing games (MMORPGs). One of their most popular games, Albion Online, is a fantasy sandbox MMORPG featuring full-loot combat, a player-driven economy, and a classless “you are what you wear” skill system. The game is fully cross-platform, playable on PC, Mac, Linux, iOS, or Android with a single account, and is localized into numerous languages including Japanese, Korean, Traditional/Simplified Chinese, and Indonesian. Albion Online has a global player base, and Sandbox Interactive decided to expand their game to the Asia-Pacific region to offer faster connection speeds and better ping for players throughout Australia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia.

The Challenge

Sandbox Interactive faced a significant challenge when expanding Albion Online to the Asia-Pacific region. The company needed to ensure that the game’s infrastructure could support the high volume of data and traffic generated by players in the region. The company also needed to optimize the game’s performance to provide a seamless experience for players in the region. Additionally, Sandbox Interactive needed a cloud provider that could ensure secure and fast connectivity between different data centers for the seamless synchronization of data across different locations.

The Solution

Sandbox Interactive turned to Gcore, a leading cloud provider that offers a managed Kubernetes platform to support high-volume critical data projects. Gcore implemented the following Managed Kubernetes solutions to support Sandbox Interactive’s Big Data project.

Deployment of Elasticsearch Cluster on Kubernetes in the Gcore Cloud

Elasticsearch is a powerful open-source search and analytics engine that can be used to search, analyze, and visualize data in real-time. With Elasticsearch, Sandbox Interactive can store and process large volumes of data generated by players in the Asia-Pacific region, and quickly search and analyze this data to improve the game’s performance.

Automated Container Management with Managed Kubernetes Platform

  • Insta-scaling to help Sandbox Interactive easily scale their infrastructure, create new containers, and remove unwanted resources
  • Ability to restart and update containers
  • Continuous monitoring of container status
  • Load balancing for control over the traffic and distribution of resources among the containers
  • Deployment and updating of confidential information and application configurations without changing container images or exposing data
  • Storage and management of confidential information such as passwords, OAuth tokens, and SSH keys

The Results

By using Gcore’s cloud platform, Sandbox Interactive was able to expand Albion Online to the Asia-Pacific region and offer a seamless gaming experience to millions of players in the region. The new server, Albion East, provides much faster connection speeds, better ping, and lower latency for players throughout Australia, East Asia, and Southeast Asia. Additionally, the timings of game and server events, such as territory battles, Crystal League, Faction Warfare, maintenance, etc., are optimized for the region’s time-zones, making the game more accessible to millions of players in the Asia-Pacific region.

The partnership between Sandbox Interactive and Gcore is a great example of how cloud providers can support high-volume critical data projects such as the EOSC platform. With Gcore’s managed Kubernetes platform, Sandbox Interactive was able to address their key challenges business challenges:

  • Store and process large volumes of data generated by players
  • Quickly search and analyze this data to improve the game’s performance
  • Ensure secure and fast connectivity between different data centers for the seamless synchronization of data across different locations

Additionally, Gcore’s onsite support engineers ensured quick resolution of unforeseen issues. One such issue resulted in a sudden increase in latency in the leased line. The cause was a cut fiber that affected the backbone provider who operates the line. Gcore immediately provided Sandbox Interactive with a second leased line that is operated by a different provider as a fallback solution. Gcore also implemented an automatic fallback to an IPsec tunnel in case the leased line were to suddenly fail completely.

Gcore’s support was instrumental in successfully expanding our game to the new region. They were always available to discuss and agree on our requirements in person and provided a dedicated team of project managers and engineers. We highly recommend Gcore as the best choice for anyone seeking reliable cloud services.

David Salz

CTO & Co-Founder of Sandbox Interactive

Sign up for Gcore Cloud

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How OnlineChannel.TV accelerated video streaming services with Gcore https://gcore.com/case-studies/online-channel-tv/ Fri, 21 Apr 2023 10:00:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=2840 Gcore helped OnlineChannel.TV overcome challenges with its platform’s performance, resulting in an improved user experience, increased customer base, and higher revenue.

OnlineChannel.TV is a leading online streaming platform that provides live and on-demand video content to its customers. The platform was recently launched, and it has grown its user base steadily over time. However, with the increasing demand for online video content, OnlineChannel.TV needed to improve its platform’s performance to meet the growing customer needs.

The challenge

The major challenge faced by OnlineChannel.TV was frequent downtimes, which made it difficult for customers to access the content. Furthermore, the existing infrastructure was unable to accommodate the growing number of users, leading to slow loading times and poor video quality. Additionally, the cost and the lack of technical support offered by other providers made it difficult for OnlineChannel.TV to find a suitable partner.

The company’s management has long been searching for a suitable provider who could give their streaming platform a reliable and high-end infrastructure.

The solution

Gcore provided a comprehensive solution to OnlineChannel.TV’s challenges.

  1. Cloud Hosting: Gcore provided OnlineChannel.TV with a cloud-based hosting solution that allowed the platform to scale its infrastructure to meet growing customer needs. This ensured that the platform could handle a large number of users without experiencing downtimes.
  2. Content Delivery Network (CDN): Gcore implemented a CDN that distributed content to customers through a network of servers, reducing the load on the platform’s servers and improving the overall streaming experience.
  3. Load Balancing: Gcore implemented a load balancing system that ensured that the platform’s resources were distributed evenly, improving performance and preventing downtimes.
  4. Pricing: Gcore was willing to work with OnlineChannel.TV to help them become successful.

“We talked to several others, and there were multiple reasons why we couldn’t go with them, including cost, features, and access to technical support (which is key for our success). Gcore, on the other hand, was willing to work with us to help us become successful. They believe that if we win, they win. A model that we go by ourselves. Gcore’s infrastructure is a great value for money, and their technical support has been instrumental in helping us overcome the challenges we faced. We are glad to have partnered with Gcore and look forward to growing our business together.”

Marty Jean-Louis

CEO of OnlineChannel.TV

The results

The implementation of Gcore’s solutions resulted in a significant improvement in the platform’s performance. The platform’s uptime increased, and customers could access content without experiencing downtimes. The loading times improved, and the video quality was enhanced, leading to a better streaming experience for customers. Consequently, OnlineChannel.TV’s customer base grew, and the platform’s revenue increased.

Gcore’s cloud hosting solution, CDN implementation, and load balancing system provided OnlineChannel.TV with a comprehensive solution that addressed the platform’s challenges. The improvements in performance resulted in an enhanced customer experience, leading to increased revenue for the platform. The successful partnership between OnlineChannel.TV and Gcore demonstrates the importance of choosing the right partner to address the challenges faced by online streaming platforms.

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Enhancing Web Performance and Reliability with Gcore Edge Network https://gcore.com/case-studies/jsdelivr/ Wed, 12 Apr 2023 06:33:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=2702 Gcore Edge Network provides jsDelivr, a free open-source CDN with unlimited CDN bandwidth, reliable DNS hosting, and on-the-fly image optimization service.

About jsDelivr

jsDelivr is a free and open-source CDN that helps developers to deliver their projects faster and more efficiently. It serves as a library of various popular open-source projects, making it easy for developers to access and use them in their projects. The platform also provides a valuable service to the open-source community by helping to make the Internet a better place.

Why is it important? As the number of Internet users continues to grow, the demand for faster and more reliable web pages also increases. jsDelivr helps to meet this demand by providing developers with a free and efficient way to deliver their projects to users around the world.

The Challenge

To meet the growing demand for faster and more reliable web pages, jsDelivr faces the constant challenge of improving its services for developers and users.

A key component of this effort is a multi-CDN service, which ensures that content is delivered from the fastest and most reliable CDN based on the user’s location. However, managing multiple CDN providers and ensuring the best possible source for content delivery is not easy.

To improve its multi-CDN strategy, jsDelivr has adopted the basic idea of adding additional CDN providers to its system, particularly in locations that its current set of providers cannot cover efficiently.

This approach leads to increased performance, stability, and smoother service for customers. Reliable and resilient DNS services are critical for the success of a multi-CDN service, and jsDelivr heavily relies on such services to make its load balancing smoother and more stable.

The Solution

About CDN

The principal Gcore’s contribution to the jsDelivr’s multi-CDN system is unlimited CDN bandwidth with exceptional coverage in some regions like South America, Africa, and South Asia.

Moreover, with a strong presence in Europe, Gcore significantly improved the content delivery capabilities in the region, minimizing any possibilities for performance degradation.

About DNS

To make the jsDelivr’s multi-CDN balancing more smooth and more reliable, Gcore provided it with DNS hosting services with extended GeoDNS functionality. JsDelivr picked 108 Gcore’s DNS PoPs to strengthen the existing set of DNS providers.

It made possible to lower the load on the existing DNS providers and improve the availability of systems at the same time.

“We are excited to welcome Gcore as our partner. Their powerful platform for edge optimization will help us to improve the performance and stability of our services for our users.”

Martin Kolarik

Core Developer of jsDelivr

About Image Stack

An additional bonus that Gcore brings to jsDelivr is an image optimization tool that allows users to substantially reduce the size of delivering image assets.

This tool can convert your conventional JPG and PNG files into modern WebP and AVIF formats, apply crop and resize edits, and set the general quality of the transferring images.

In the official announcement, jsDelivr declares that this tool turned 1.2 MB PNG file into 69 KB image transferred as AVIF content type—94% traffic savings with no visual degradation.

The Results

For the best performance, jsDelivr leveraged Gcore to enhance its reliability, potentially increasing users’ confidence and loyalty towards this open-source service. By utilizing jsDelivr’s global network of servers, users can optimize their website’s content delivery.

Next-gen CDN

More stable multi-CDN: The participation of Gcore Edge Network in jsDelivr’s multi-CDN system has improved the performance of the network in certain regions. Furthermore, as jsDelivr expanded to more new regions, it increased the network’s performance and availability, resulting in an even better user experience.

DNS Hosting

More reliable and resilient DNS service: Gcore Edge Network serves as an additional DNS provider, providing more reliable and stable services for jsDelivr’s users. Now, all processing DNS queries are allocated to three DNS providers instead of two, and the overall number of DNS pops has increased to more than 160. DNS hosting is particularly important because it determines which CDN server will handle a user’s request based on the user’s geographic location.

Image Stack

Additional feature for Image processing and delivery: Gcore Edge Network’s image optimization feature provides additional value to jsDelivr users’ performance and workflow, and as a result, the jsDelivr’s website is now utilizing this service to reduce the image size and improve overall web performance.

Try Gcore CDN for free

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How Gcore is helping Super Protocol on its mission to completely decentralize Web3 https://gcore.com/case-studies/super-protocol/ Tue, 11 Apr 2023 09:33:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=2677 Super Protocol, the developer of the decentralized confidential computing protocol for Web3, joined forces with Gcore to expand the Super Protocol network of confidential computing providers.

About Super Protocol

Super Protocol is a decentralized confidential computing protocol that makes it possible to deploy any applications, services or smart contracts to the Web3 off-chain infrastructure and keep them completely private. The protocol uses a combination of blockchain, smart contracts, and confidential computing to securely bring together the providers of solutions, data, and computing resources. The confidential computing technology is a key component of Super Protocol, as it isolates sensitive data in use in a CPU-protected enclave during execution and ensures that not even the owner of the machine has access. All computing resources provided through Super Protocol must have confidential computing-enabled CPUs.

The problem being solved by Super Protocol is this: Web3 in its pure form is envisioned as completely decentralized, with all computations processed by dApps and smart contracts on blockchain. However, smart contracts have many limitations, like built-in transparency and low performance. This problem is solved by adding a layer of so-called off-chain computations, where all the heavy processing is taken off blockchain and into a more traditional computing environment. The mission of Super Protocol is to decentralize these computing environments and integrate them with smart contracts on-chain, thus completing the decentralization of Web3 itself.

And Super Protocol has plenty of experience under its belt to meet this challenge. The company was founded by an experienced team that has already built a successful company. Its flagship product used decentralization and confidential computing technologies to help over 30 major enterprise clients—banks, retail chains, telecom—to securely process highly sensitive transactions for over 80 million unique customers on a daily basis.

Partnership with Gcore

To further expand the network providing Web3 with confidential computing infrastructure, Super Protocol has selected Gcore as one of their key partners for the launch of Testnet Phase 2. This new major release features decentralized confidential hosting with the tunneling network protocol, the first in the world to enable hosting in a confidential computing environment. The tunnels serve as the secure gateway between services running in confidential environments and the rest of the internet. With over 15,000 testers signed up for participation and an exponentially wider audience using the deployed services, Super Protocol was very careful in the choice of infrastructure providers, which were to be held to the highest possible standard in terms of performance, stability, and availability of confidential computing.

Gcore Cloud was the clear choice for Super Protocol, offering a range of benefits that made it stand out from other cloud providers. With its pay-as-you-go plan, Gcore was able to provide a very market-competitive rate for customized bare metal machines. But that’s not all—Gcore Cloud also had no setup fees, and even offered the Super Protocol team free access for testing purposes.

And most importantly, the critical requirement for all the machines providing computing services on Super Protocol was the availability of confidential computing-enabled CPUs such as Intel SGX 2.0. In this area, Gcore has excelled bar none and met all the Super Protocol demands for bare metal machines. And with the ability to customize solutions on SGX BMs, Super Protocol was particularly pleased with Gcore Cloud’s flexibility.

“The flexibility in customization of RAM and CPU was a big winning point for us, allowing us to configure the machines to match the exact needs of the decentralized confidential network.”

Yulia Gontar

COO at Super Protocol

But it’s not just the technology that impressed Super Protocol—it’s also the company behind it. Gcore Cloud manages its own global IT infrastructure across 6 continents and boasts an average worldwide response time of just 20-30 ms. And with access to Intel SGX technology, Gcore Cloud became the perfect partner to assist Super Protocol on the way to its mission of bringing the decentralized confidential computing infrastructure to Web3.

“We are thrilled to be partnering with Super Protocol to bring their innovative Web3 confidential computing infrastructure to a wider audience. With our customized bare metal machines and access to Intel SGX technology, we are confident that we can provide the high performance and secure infrastructure necessary for the success of Super Protocol’s Testnet Phase 2 and beyond.”

Seva Vayner

Gcore Cloud Product Owner
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How to provide a reliable infrastructure for the financial market. Your Bourse case study https://gcore.com/case-studies/your-bourse/ Thu, 09 Mar 2023 19:56:14 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=1513 About Your Bourse

Your Bourse is an Estonia-based company founded by the former founder and owner of Alpari Group, Andrey Vedikhin. Your Bourse is a software company that offers trade execution solutions for the retail and institutional MT4/MT5 and crypto brokers as well as data analytics and reporting and risk management solutions.

The task

Your Bourse offers a Platform-as-a-Service (PaaS) for crypto brokers and traditional CDF/FX brokers.

The core product is the Matching Engine, which allows brokers to create their central order book. The Matching Engine matches buy and sell trades, such as if someone is selling 10 stocks of company A for X dollars at the market price and someone else is trying to buy 10 stocks of company A for X dollars at the market price, the Engine will match them to confirm the deal.

Another product offered by the company is Liquidity Aggregation, which provides a constant flow of orders into the central order book–Matching Engine. The tool uses FIX API connectors and WebSocket API connectors to aggregate pricing from multiple trading venues such as banks and cryptocurrency exchanges and then stream the pricing to end clients. Brokers can create an unlimited liquidity pool with different routing rules from just a single connection to the venue. As of now, Your Bourse is integrated with all traditional CDF/FX trading venues and several crypto exchanges. Crypto market makers can use the Matching Engine to match trade between various venues, and brokers can also create dark pools using the Engine.

Your Bourse also has native integration with two most popular trading platforms in the retail FX and CFD’s market: MetaTrader 4 (MT4) and MetaTrader 5 (MT5). These trading platforms connect to the Engine via Bridge or Gateway, take its aggregated pricing data and stream it to their end-users. If an MT4/MT5 end-user wants to trade, they send a buy/sell order back to the Matching Engine, and the order is processed internally or streamed to the Liquidity provider based on the routing rules set by a broker. The connectivity between the trade execution engine and MT4/MT5 is provided through API plugins of MT4/MT5 servers (Bridge and Gateway). For clients who don’t have the resources to host their own MT4 or MT5 trading platforms, Your Bourse offers hosting and administration services for these platforms.

Your Bourse was looking for a hosting service who would be able to provide reliable infrastructure for their MT4 and MT5 clients. As a key figure in the financial market, the connectivity speed was also crucial. This is how Your Bourse started partnering with Gcore.

The result

Your Bourse uses Gcore, most and foremost to host its PaaS components, but also to provide ultra-low latency and secure MT4/MT5 server hosting and a turn-key solution for those who want to quickly launch a MT4/MT5 brokerage.

The testing period is over, and we are pleased Gcore is a very reliable partner. In the future, we are planning to move at least half of our infrastructure to Gcore, safe in the knowledge that Gcore’s infrastructure is sufficient to even host our most precious component—one of the fastest matching engines in the world.

Andrey Vedikhin

Your Bourse Founder, CEO and CTO

In 2022, Your Bourse was awarded Best Technology Provider during the Ultimate Fintech Awards 2022 that took place in Cyprus at iFX Expo International. Your Bourse was also recently awarded Best Technology Provider MEA 2023.

Why Your Bourse chose Gcore Hosting

  • Tier III and Tier IV certified data centers around the world
  • Variety of configurations and upgrade possibilities
  • DDoS protection
  • 24/7 NOC support

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Infrastructure for billions of gamers around the world: The experience of Photon https://gcore.com/case-studies/photon/ Mon, 10 Oct 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=671 Founded in 2004 for mobile, PC, Web, Console, VR/AR, developers use Photon to create games and applications that offer synchronous real-time multiplayer experiences that scale to millions of players. Photon powers thousands of games and applications which are enjoyed by over +1.2 billion users a month. Over 650,000 developers—including some of the world’s leading companies—trust Photon to fuel their real-time experiences, including EA, Disney, Square Enix, Ubisoft, Oculus, Voodoo, RecRoom, VRChat, BandaiNamco and Scopely.

The goal

Every day, Photon powers game processes for all major game genres (from action, arcade, and hyper-casual to MMO) for billions of gamers around the world. A truly global infrastructure was required for players to have a positive experience.

“Publishers expect us to provide a fast, reliable and scalable platform for their multiplayer games, so that their player’s experience is top notch, regardless of country and device.”

Christof Wegmann

CTO & Founder of Photon

The project requires high CPU and network IO performance, so Photon needs the best available hosting power.

They needed an infrastructure that is able to process a huge number of requests and also repel DDoS attacks to preserve the reputation of studios in the eyes of players.

After analyzing the market options, the engineers at Photon selected Gcore as one of the main providers of server capacity and DDoS protection.

“Gcore has a tremendous experience of working with AAA game studios and publishers around the world — from Bandai Namco to Wargaming. We now have several years of positive experience in our cooperation and feel our infrastructure is in good hands with Gcore.”

Christof Wegmann

CTO & Founder of Photon

The results

One of the success reason of Photon as the #1 network engine in the world is the network of trusted partners to help them. The success of the live games depends not only on the gameplay, but also on the connection stability and performance. Gcore servers help Photon to guarantee the perfect connectivity and continuity of their product.

With the help of Gcore services, Photon operations team do not need to worry about DDoS attacks, and they can scale the infrastructure fast. This reduces the time for launching new regions worldwide and significantly saves costs.

Why Photon chose Gcore Hosting and Protection

  • Tier III and Tier IV certified data centers around the world
  • Variety of configurations and upgrade possibilities
  • DDoS protection
  • 24/7 noc support

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How Nitrado brings its low-latency gaming to Japanese and South American markets thanks to Gcore infrastructure https://gcore.com/case-studies/nitrado/ Tue, 23 Aug 2022 00:00:00 +0000 https://gcore.com/?post_type=case-studies&p=670 When it comes to the technology infrastructure that supports their operations, gaming industry businesses are unusual. Very unusual. This is because online gaming is one of the few use cases that require more capability than even the great hyperscale cloud providers can provide. Consumers demand seamless, low-latency performance and the best possible experience, and that requires something special.

It’s for this reason that Nitrado, an online game server hosting company operates its own global infrastructure. It’s also why, when it needed to expand its business, it turned to Gcore as its cloud partner of choice.

Nitrado, which is owned by marbis GmbH, supports a portfolio of approximately 130 games, including the ever-popular Minecraft. The key focus of Nitrado’s 200-strong workforce is to deliver the best possible user experience to customers. To that end, the company works closely with publishers and game developers to secure early access to new games for its online user community.

In addition, Nitrado hosts its own gaming infrastructure in third-party data centers, and it often rents dedicated server power to customers to improve their gaming experience. The gaming infrastructure operated by Nitrado runs at a total power of 220,661 GHz and has 1,233,019 GB of RAM storage capacity.

Gearing up for growth

Nitrado has built a global gaming infrastructure of data centers, internet exchanges, and direct peering links with internet service providers in key locations such as Frankfurt, London, Sydney, Singapore and the USA. Doing so, Nitrado ensures that gaming traffic always takes the shortest possible route to its destination, helping to reduce latency and deliver a great gaming experience to customers.

Nitrado has recently entered a phase of rapid growth that requires increasing its infrastructure footprint in a different way. This growth has been driven by the pandemic, which has given a significant boost to the gaming industry. According to Statista, worldwide revenues from cloud gaming amounted to $1.48 billion in 2021, and are expected to rise to around $6.3 billion in 2024.

New markets, new challenges

Nitrado’s goal was to meet new demand through two new infrastructure hubs in Tokyo and São Paulo. However, in doing so the company faced several challenges. First, it needed to find a rapid way to establish a presence in these markets, which can be challenging to enter due to language barriers and complex legal and bureaucratic obligations. Second, Nitrado needed to ensure that the infrastructure in place at these hubs would be able to deliver the high levels of low latency and performance required to deliver seamless digital gaming experiences.

The online, multiplayer cloud-based games provided by Nitrado place a huge demand on hardware, and the highest levels of performance are required to deliver low-latency play. This is particularly challenging during the winter months, when demand for gaming servers increases by an average of 20%. Similar demand peaks can also take place within just 24 hours, and it is essential that Nitrado and its partners can successfully balance loads to deliver that seamless experience.

Exacerbating this challenge is the fact that games are often not programmed to work optimally with the supporting hardware. For example, the load of games cannot be distributed across multiple servers without impacting the gaming experience. For this reason, Nitrado configures its own hardware and uses high-performance server models such as Intel® Xeon® E-2388G and Gold® 6348. These offer stable and high clock speeds even under a heavy load.

Partnering for growth

Given the cultural, legal and bureaucratic challenges of its new target markets. Nitrado opted to work with Gcore, a global cloud infrastructure provider. By partnering with Gcore, Nitrado gained instant access to 150 points of presence across five continents, 15 cloud locations, and 25 data centers with servers. Access to Gcore’s technology and expertise also meant that Nitrado could make the leap to two new continents with ease, safe in the knowledge that all legal and bureaucratic requirements were met.

For the Tokyo and São Paulo deployments, Gcore undertook all project management duties, including communication and logistics, securing the necessary paperwork (which was particularly challenging in São Paulo), importing and setting up servers, and securing contracts with local service providers. Gcore thereby ensured that Nitrado’s entry into the South American and Japanese games hosting markets was friction free and rapid, delivering significant time and resource savings.

High performance guaranteed

The second key benefit of working with Gcore is that Nitrado can deliver the same high user experience to Latin American and Japanese customers it does to the customers it serves through its own servers and data centers.

The performance of the hardware combined with the significantly better price-performance ratio of Gcore is the main reason why we do not rent our infrastructure from one of the hyperscalers.

Marcel Bößendörfer

Managing Director at Nitrado

The solution set delivered by Gcore delivers low-latency, high-performance gaming through the following infrastructure services:

  • Bare metal services: To cushion extreme peak loads or to scale at short notice. Bare metal servers are more secure than cloud solutions, as the resources are not shared with other customers.
  • IP transit at all locations: Gcore has a direct connection to high-bandwidth Tier I and II Internet providers in the respective countries. In addition, Gcore is also available as the primary internet connection to ensure that gaming traffic always takes the shortest route possible to provide customers with a good gaming experience.
  • Colocation: Renting space in data centers, including the necessary infrastructure such as server cooling, security and support for the company’s own servers.

“With Gcore, we have managed to standardize our global expansion and cover regions where it would have been very difficult to gain a foothold on our own,” says Marcel Bößendörfer. “The cloud provider has the expertise we need in low latency and high server performance. In addition, it knows the needs of a game hoster in expanding our online business worldwide and has the necessary structures for on-site implementation.”

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