Jul 28, 2016

Pokemon Go Does Not Have to Be Down or Slow

by Frank Yue

Ever since Pokemon Go was launched, there have been constant connectivity and performance problems for players around the world. It has been 20 days since the game was released and there are still times when players cannot log in or connect to the game. Sometimes, the game launches, but the environment is empty as the application tries to support the massive player demand. In addition, it is likely that hackers are launching DDoS attacks against the game infrastructure in an attempt to gain some media attention that has been closely following the game.

This does not have to be the case and there are best practices that Niantic, the developer of Pokemon Go, and Google Cloud, the host for the application, can do to alleviate these issues. Here are some points businesses should take into consideration when building online applications to ensure their availability:

· Elasticity — Use technologies to ensure that the resources for the components of an application (authentication, server, database, etc.) can be added as needed to meet the current demand. Use load balancing technologies and cloud orchestration models that create a flexible and on-demand infrastructure. When more players attempt to connect, application servers can be added to the resource pool dynamically, automatically, and transparently to ensure that the clients do not time out or take a long time to connect.