Server Costs and Risks - July Update

Last post: https://www.patreon.com/posts/57503304 

This is a fairly lengthy post. If you just want to know the cost, it's currently $54.23. Otherwise, this post will detail exactly where the costs are coming from and what the current risks are to the server shutting down.

Our primary machine is provided by GameserverKings through the Terraria subreddit (the machine is actually lent to the Terraria subreddit but we were given access as part of integrating the Survival server into DG and being listed as the official subreddit server). 

$0 for Ryzen 5 3600, 476 GB SSD, 32 GB RAM (nickname gsk-texas-1)

It is not certain how long we will have this machine. If we do lose this machine we may move the server over to our Europe one (listed below, though this is a major risk, see risks section).

It's also to be noted that lately, this machine is not known to be that reliable. It frequently reboots itself.

This machine hosts:

• All Dimensions for our Terraria Server
• Trading System & Economy (https://dtp.dark-gaming.com)
• PvP Manager (https://pvpmanager.dark-gaming.com)
• Phase Translator (Phase right-click -> translate)

We also have a dedicated server in Europe that is currently used to host the forum and some other services.

$37.65/month for Intel Core i7-4770, 4 TB HDD storage and 32 GB RAM (nickname hetzner-fra-1)

This machine hosts:

• Phase (https://phase.dark-gaming.com)
• Phase Database
• Phase Chat Relay
• Supporter Dashboard (https://supporter.dark-gaming.com)
• Ban Manager (https://ban.dark-gaming.com)
• Forum (https://forum.dark-gaming.com)
• IP Blacklist
• Avatar Service
• Survival World Generator
• DG frontpage (https://dark-gaming.com)

And also acts as a failover if the main server is offline.

Our database is hosted on its own VM at Linode in Texas, USA (nickname linode-texas-1):
$5/month Nanode using a 1 vCPU, 1 GB Memory.
+$1.93/month Backups
+$0.30/month image hosting
+$1.42/month tax
=$8.49/month

We have daily backups being stored in AWS S3:
$1.97/month for storage last month.

Our forum also uses a mail service (mailgun) in order to send out emails. The cost is around $3.12/month - I had to reduce the number of emails sent out by the forum to get this number down.

In order to protect our server against ban evaders, bots and spammers we also pay for proxycheck.io so that we can check whether an IP may be a proxy, VPN or server. $3.00/month

So if we count everything here: Total: $54.23

I have managed to reduce costs compared to last time, however, the cost of some services went up, so this meant that the total amount is not much different.

Current Risks

gsk-texas-1 being taken away

As this server is not paid for by us, and instead as part of a deal with the subreddit, it is possible and with each year more likely, that we may lose access to it.

During trials when gsk-texas-1 was offline due to outage, we got to see what the performance of hetzner-fra-1 is like when it is hosting the whole server. Based on this experience, it is highly likely that permanently losing access to gsk-texas-1 would:

• Cause lobby counts to be be very limited (4 or less, with 10 or less players per lobby)
• Performance of the in-game servers to be reduced - Survival itself might become unplayable

The cost to replace it is not known, it's possible that the hetzner server would need to be replaced with something more high price like (this) at $41.32 (total: ~$57) or even (this) at $65.60 (total: ~$80).

gsk-texas-1 is unreliable

Unfortunately, lately, this server has been unreliable and has started to frequently reboot throughout the week. Mitigations could be hosting the access point to the server (the dimensions proxy) either separately ($5+/month) or on the Europe server. But hosting it on the Europe server would increase latency. Other possibilities are doing region-based DNS to have Europe users near hetzner-fra-1 be connected to an entry point there, with mirror servers available in case of downtime. This would not help the US users, but it does reduce the number of people experiencing issues. Costs for region-based DNS are unknown.

Losing active players/staff

This is a risk that any community has to deal with. The plan, for now, is to ensure that those with the most time and trustworthiness are given the freedom to deal with issues, add new features and rearrange things as necessary. These are what we call Managers. As much leeway in changes is given as possible without generating unnecessary risk on maintenance of the server.

Losing me

Due to the complexity of the server, it's not yet possible for me to completely stop engaging without DG itself going down. To mitigate this issue would mean to have someone as equally dependable with the knowledge to deal with the issues that may arise, this means having expertise in programming and server management. There currently isn't someone that meets these requirements yet.

Possible cost cutting measures

1. Removing hetzner-fra-1 and replacing it by smaller VMs. That would mean:

• 1 vCPU/2 GB RAM for Forum (~$10)
• 1 vCPU/2 GB RAM for Phase (~$10)
• 1 vCPU/1 GB RAM for Supporter Dashboard, Ban Manager, Avatar Service, etc (~$5)
• 1 vCPU/2 GB RAM once a week for Survival World Generator (~$0.06)

The bottom estimate is somewhere around $25+. So the saving would be at most $10 and would be less for things like backups.

Risk: Low. Savings: Minimal. Effort: High

2. Moving x services to gsk-texas-1

At peak times this would definitely hit 100% CPU. If everything was moved, it would also mean if this machine goes offline, everything would go down and a failover wouldn't be an option.
If everything was moved except those that cannot be, that would make monthly costs around $8.09. If we kept the (main) database separate, that would be $16.58.

It seems very risky to do this because the only thing available when that machine is offline would be the Discord. And providing a temporary server for failover would likely mean not having access to any services outside of the in-game server.

Risk: High. Savings: High. Effort: High

Therefore at the moment, I do not see any possibility of saving on server costs.