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Stripped-Down, Streamlined Servers

CDC Games talks about the data center economics from the perspective of operator of MMO online games. A priority: bare-bones servers.

Like most operators of online MMO games, CDC Games runs a lot of servers. Unlike World of Warcraft and other major MMORPGs, CDC doesn't charge a fee for its games, and makes its money on the sale of in-game products and services. That model has worked well in the Chinese gaming market, and CDC has expanded into North America, hosting its equipment with Terremark (TMRK) at the company's NAP of the Americas in Miami.

In a Network World profile, CDC general manager Ron Williams says server vendors would do well to consider the needs of gaming companies and other emerging providers focused on scalability, which have different priorities than the traditional enterprise customer. An excerpt:

"All of us are taking these generic, commoditized servers and trying to do the best we can, when what we really want is a stripped-down box that's of high quality," Williams says. "IBM can't afford to keep all kinds of models around, but I think as we move more into cloud computing, someone is going to have to create (more stripped-down servers) for us, whether we're gamers or software-as-a-service."

Williams talks about the data center economics for gaming companies, and how they may differ from other customers. Check out the full story at Network World.