I’ve been kicking around the idea of running a server for games and chat woth some of my friends, but worry about everyone getting cut off when there’s a disruption.
I’ve started looking into kubernetes out of curiosity, and it seems like we could potentially set up a cluster with master nodes at 3+ locations to hose whatever game server or chat server that we want with 100% uptime, solving my concerns.
Am I misunderstanding the kubernetes documentation, and this is just a terrible idea? Or am I on the right track?
If avoiding downtime is your number one priority and you’re willing to take on a lot of complexity to achieve it, then Kubernetes is probably the way to go. There are various chat platforms that can be distributed, but keeping a game server state synced between nodes isn’t an easy task. There’s a reason most multiplayer games are instanced.
I do find it a little odd that you’re so concerned about uptime with a casual gaming server, but to each their own.
Personally, part of it is that I don’t want everything to be solely dependent on a box I own. I don’t like the idea of lording a petty fiefdom over my friends. If there’s multiple distributed boxes that are technically equal, then there’s less potential for interpersonal friction.
Also, while I have the more powerful server, I also have very little free time. If my box stops working for whatever reason, I don’t want my friends to have to wait 1-2 weeks for me to fix it
In that case, why self-host? A cloud-based solution would accomplish this very easily.
With a cloud-based solution you still have the issue of who owns what, plus the logistics of shuffling around data if things go tits up. In addition, we already don’t want to pay $10/month for 6 months to run a game server that’s only used for 1 month