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Rovio’s on-demand gaming spinoff Hatch and New York-based bare metal cloud provider Packet partnered on a new solution for supporting the Finnish firm’s game streaming service, with their venture being specifically targeted at multiplayer experiences. The first result of their partnership is now being showcased at Mobile World Congress 2018 in the form of a cloud-based multiplayer edition of Angry Birds, with the companies claiming the initial edge computing hardware deployment that enabled the improved service only took three weeks, having been conducted in Marseille, France. Compared to the previous hosting solution with Amsterdam-based hardware, the firms managed to improve the latency of the on-demand mobile gaming platform by approximately 50-percent, or 20ms in both directions, according to Hatch Chief Executive Officer Juhani Honkala.
By leveraging a bare metal cloud solution, Hatch managed to circumvent virtual machines and layered networks, having utilized Armv8-A infrastructure to go “as close to the real edge as possible,” the executive claims. In the context of highly interactive use cases such as on-demand gaming, edge computing provides a significant advantage that can lead to massive performance increases if utilized correctly, which is exactly what Hatch and Packet set out to do for their MWC 2018 demo. Packet’s solutions support both x86 and Armv8 architectures, with Hatch now pursuing the latter following its partnership with Qualcomm that saw it adopt the chipmaker’s Centriq 2400 series of 64-bit-only server platforms. The versatility of Packet’s portfolio made it a natural fit for Hatch’s needs, according to Rovio’s subsidiary which hinted the newly announced partnership might expand going forward.
Packet presently operates 18 data centers around the world and is expected to continue strengthening its global physical footprint in the future. Hatch itself is also pursuing expansion, having launched its service in the United Kingdom last month which brought its list of supported markets to fourteen countries. The Marseille data center Packet launched to power Hatch’s MWC 2018 demo is already available to other customers, CEO Zac Smith said. Hatch itself is now set to continue bringing its service to more countries in the coming months but isn’t attaching any specific roadmaps to the project that it’s still describing as being highly dynamic in the manner in which it operates and evolves.