Creating Memorable Gaming Experiences with Kubernetes

“Every technology decision is designed to make the experiences of players more satisfying. It’s not just the quality of the games, it’s how we  create  the  responsive, rewarding and engaging services that surround them. Rancher is essential to this.” Donald Havas, Senior Cloud Services Manager, Ubisoft

If you’re a gamer, you probably know how immersed you can get in your favorite game. Or if you’re the parent or partner of a gamer, you probably know what it’s like to try to get the attention of someone who is in “gaming mode.” Creating worlds and enriching players’ lives is in Ubisoft’s DNA. The French video game pioneer is the name behind some of the biggest gaming titles in history, including Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, the Tom Clancy series and Just Dance.

Moving to Cloud-Native with Kubernetes

Boosting innovation and driving technical agility are the company’s primary goals – and Kubernetes is becoming essential to this strategy. With its sights set on global growth, Ubisoft has put Rancher Labs at the heart of its Ubisoft Kubernetes Service (UKS). With Kubernetes and Rancher, the technology team at Ubisoft is accelerating the journey toward a cloud-native, microservices-centric future. The aim? To gain a competitive edge through innovation and, critically, to drive serious management efficiencies.

Ubisoft’s infrastructure team was an early adopter of containers and standardized on Kubernetes in 2017 after seeing the momentum around it. Given the freedom to innovate with Kubernetes, Ubisoft’s teams of developers were galvanized. New container deployments began to spring up all over the business. While not required to work in Kubernetes, developers started to test it, creating new services and applications quickly.

When the inevitable happened – cluster sprawl – due to pockets of innovation and development across the company, they realized they needed a formal orchestration strategy. They wanted a solution that sat close to the upstream Kubernetes community. In March 2018, after a successful PoC, they started using Rancher.

Centralizing Cluster Management with Rancher

The team’s vision of a central Kubernetes provisioning platform to automate many basic processes came to life in the Ubisoft Kubernetes Service. This self-service Kubernetes platform, based on Rancher, gives thousands of developers the ability to spin up new Kubernetes clusters in an instant in a controllable, centrally managed way.

Ubisoft’s Kubernetes clusters host its internal video platform, shopping toolbox and a host of game administration tools that help teams plan discount and loyalty programs. Ubisoft’s gaming support tool – a user-facing service that uses machine learning to help support specialist to answer players – is another critical service.

Read our case study to hear how Ubisoft has reduced cluster deployment time by 80 percent – allowing them to spend more time innovating and creating satisfying player experiences.