ELI5: Why the absolute hell did SE not use Azure or AWS as a temporary solution?

[Thoosa]

https://venturebeat.com/2018/03/19/a...ame-companies/

"to handle the ebbs and flows of demand on cloud-connected data centers"

It seems that the games do not run at 100% on AWS. Second, those games are not MMOs. And third, the server software must be developed in mind that it will propably run in cloud instances. If not then the server software will run very very VERY slow.

A cloud instance is more comparable to a Raspberry Pi than to a Xeon/Epyc-server. But you can rent thousands of those Raspberry Pi-like instances on demand and spawn them very quickly. And that is a problem. It is very unlikely that one cloud instance can handle more than a dozen players at once. And you do not want that only one dozen players are allowed per zone. Because it would not be an MMO anymore. And no, you cannot take 20 cloud instances and make one big instance of them because cloud instances are strictly separated from each other. You need to synchronize them permanently via network. And permanent synchronization creates a lot of network traffic.

Running on AWS may work for small group loot shooter but not for MMOs.

Cheers

Apparently it does: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/gametec...rpg-migration/

[Komarimono]

Apparently it does: https://aws.amazon.com/blogs/gametec...rpg-migration/

Ah yes, amazons advertising. Here's the truth of the matter. When they did the migration, everyones latency when to heck. Would be fine at first, ping of say 32. Moment a world even happened though? Well over 300, worse for those not near the servers and connecting from afar. New World is also plagued with this, random latency spikes, massive lag and slow down during 50v50 PvP, it's pure laggy chaos.

Even WoW, when it used AWS, people got massive performance loss in latency with again random spikes from no where.

Of course Amazon stated it was peoples ISP, which was proven wrong many a time, and that it was their servers and the spikes coming from their end. But what do you expect when they use Wolfsdale era Xeons (2008 technology) for a lot of their "Servers". Why it's a cloud. They didn't do it to be faster, or superior. They did it so they could keep using ancient(in hardware terms) technology without having to invest into new as often.