In this article, you will learn more about on how CaliberServers can assist boost your game server population using our Anycast network.

When concerned about how to better serve the game server community better, CaliberServers set out to improve the performance of popular game servers, notably for those running on the Source engine from Valve.

What were the outcomes? Reduced latency, greater protection against DDoS attacks, and happy gamers!

Our network upstream worldwide coverage and an ever-increasing number of Points of Presence (PoPs) are employed at the core of this operation to enhance routing through Anycast. Essentially, each PoP broadcasts the same IP address, and user requests are automatically routed to the PoP nearest to them. As a consequence, reaction times are sped up and latency is reduced to a bare minimum.

Our Anycast network worldwide Points of Presence.

Our Valve Source Server query proxy high-performance app can handle requests on behalf of the server, it resides at the edge of our PoPs. As a consequence, the server is freed of a major “pressure”, and these queries can be replied to more quickly.

How does it function?

Our Valve Source Server query proxy derives from significant research and development. When one of our customers approached us searching for strategies to enhance their gaming servers, we swiftly designed a solution and put it on our network. An eBPF program detects and accurately redirects Valve Source packets as they reach our network. These packets are passed to the proxy, which conducts further checks to verify that the data satisfies the parameters of a Valve Source packet.

Valve Source Server application flow query proxy.

Depending on the nature of the request, our query proxy for the Valve Source Server may provide a direct response to the client. In other instances, it caches server replies and utilizes them to reply at the edge, updating these entries constantly. Even caching a server response for a few seconds could assist the host during high use, whether that traffic is genuine or a DDoS attack.

An illustration of how our Anycast network edge servers intercept queries.

While the major emphasis is on helping DayZ servers get their name out, source-proxy can be used on any game that utilizes the Valve Source engine and therefore takes use of how servers are ranked by latency.

Increasing the gaming community’s strength.

The gaming community is different in that the primary goal for the majority of people is to relax, have fun, and enjoy video games. These games may be used to escape reality, helping players to forget about real-world challenges. Neither players nor server administrators should be worried about becoming the target of DDoS attacks or other measures attackers employ to disturb users gaming experiences.

The issue is that competing DDoS mitigation solutions, such as Cloudflare, Akamai and other firms, might cost you an arm and a leg to keep your game server up and to operate! Just in utilization fees, a basic server may cost several thousand dollars! Products with the same capabilities as source-proxy, on the other hand, may cost you more than your yearly mortgage.

Source-proxy’s are available to any user at no extra cost. We can set the Valve Source Server query proxy with a click, allowing you to sit back and relax while your game server gets a limitless amount of DDoS protection.

A Germany based gamer pings an Anycast DayZ server in our New York data center and returns a response in 40 milliseconds.

Extending the focus.

With the debut of source-proxy, we found that proxying Valve requests is not the only method we can offer our customers. New game filters are continually being developed by our network upstream developers to add to our collection of application filters. This filtering may be used with or instead of the Valve Source query proxy on any gaming servers. Combining them will give the most complete solution for dependability, increased stability, and better performance. Our filters blocks non game traffic before it reaches the target game server. As a consequence, any and all DDoS attacks will be in vain…

We have a worldwide network capacity of 10+ terabytes per second and growing fast! Additionally we have our top-notch firewall, mitigation strategies, custom-made filters for many games, etc. Click here to read all about our DDoS protection.