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Daniel Gofman avatar image
Daniel Gofman asked

Multiplayer Servers 2.0 (GSDK) Maintenance shutdown

Hey everyone,

we are currently upgrading parts of our servers from legacy to the server 2.0 on azure and while reading some of the documentation (https://api.playfab.com/docs/tutorials/landing-tournaments/multiplayer-servers-2.0/integrating-your-game-server-with-playfab-multiplayer-platform ) I've noticed following paragraph:

"There are three scenarios where your game server will end: [...] 3. Azure will perform required maintenance on the virtual machine that is hosting your game server."

Does this happen regularly? Can it kill a running server with players connected to it? Or does this only apply to servers that are currently on standby and ready to restart/shutdown for maintenance?

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Sarah Zhang avatar image
Sarah Zhang answered

Does this happen regularly?

As far as I am aware, it does not happen regularly. At most time maintenance doesn’t require VMs to be rebooted. In the rare case, VMs need to be rebooted for planned maintenance. You can check the documentation Maintenance for virtual machines in Azure for more.

Can it kill a running server with players connected to it? Or does this only apply to servers that are currently on standby and ready to restart/shutdown for maintenance?

Because this Azure operation is for VMs. It does not consider the state of the server. But, only when VMs need to be rebooted can it kill a running server with players connected to it. And if you have read the content under the paragraph that you provided, you could find that the GSDK provides a way for you to know when it will occur, by specifying a callback method. You can “Perform any necessary cleanup, notify your players, etc.”in your OnMaintenanceScheduled function.

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brandon@uprootstudios.com avatar image brandon@uprootstudios.com commented ·

@Sarah Zhang I didn't post the question, but I was also wondering the same thing, so thanks for the explanation!

I do have one related question though:

Is OnMaintenanceScheduled called in advance of the machine being taken offline? Or is it called right before the machine goes offline? I noticed that it takes a DateTime parameter, but does this refer to when the machine will be taken offline or when the machine will be brought back online? I would hazard to guess that since it's titled "OnMaintenanceScheduled", it would be the former, and that it would be used to allow players/developers know the machine will be shutdown soon (instead of immediately following the message).

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Brent Batas (Lisk) avatar image
Brent Batas (Lisk) answered

@Sarah Zhang @Citrus Yan if our game sessions are only max 30 minutes, could we assume they won't be impacted by maintenance, then? I'm assuming with 30 minute sessions, VM's are being constantly spun up/spun down, so wouldn't the updates just be done after a session already ended?

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Citrus Yan avatar image Citrus Yan commented ·

Maintenances that require a reboot is very rare, and live maintenance usually won't have much impact on your game sessions, don't worry about it.

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