Zero Trust Architecture in Kubernetes

Chapter 8. Effective Zero Trust Security Scenarios with Kubernetes

Massively Multiplayer Online Robbery Pwning Game

Deploying a backend for a massively multiplayer online (MMO) game isn’t easy. It’s difficult to determine how many players a game’s servers will need the capacity and bandwidth to support until the game has had a successful stable launch and has grown its player base.

In the early days of MMO development, before cloud platforms became popular, a game development company often had to purchase its own bare-metal servers to run in on-premises network infrastructure. If an MMO exploded in popularity because IGN or PC Gamer gave it a positive review—as great as that would be for revenue—the company might have a sudden capacity nightmare. When thousands of new players find they can’t log on or they’re entering a super-slow game world, the company soon loses business.

But then Amazon, Google, Microsoft, and many other tech giants began offering infrastructure as a service (IaaS), which solved many scalability and responsiveness issues. By the mid-2010s, Docker debuted, and Kubernetes followed a couple of years later. Containerization empowered developers to deploy applications that are as scalable as the cloud environments in which they operate.

In our example, Alex and Jack started their MMO careers at indie developers that were restricted by the technological limitations of the early 2000s. But by the 2020s, the industry had acquired enough experience ...