Capacity types
GameFabric supports three types of hosting capacity for running game servers. Each type offers different tradeoffs in terms of control, cost, and management overhead.
Bare metal
Bare metal capacity consists of physical servers owned and operated by Nitrado. This is the default capacity type for most GameFabric deployments.
Key characteristics:
- Managed by Nitrado: Locations and Sites are configured by Nitrado.
- High performance: Dedicated physical hardware with no virtualization overhead.
- Cost-effective: Often preferred over cloud for cost optimization when capacity is predictable.
- Integrated billing: All costs are billed through GameFabric.
- Density: Supports up to 150 game servers per node.
Bare metal Locations are not configurable through the GameFabric UI. To request additional bare metal capacity, submit a request via the GameFabric Help Center.
GameFabric Cloud
GameFabric Cloud enables provisioning and deprovisioning of cloud Locations directly from the GameFabric UI, without requiring a separate cloud provider subscription.
Key characteristics:
- Self-service provisioning: Provision and deprovision cloud Locations through the GameFabric UI.
- Powered by GCP: Built on Google Cloud Platform's high-performance infrastructure, utilizing a specialized selection of machine types optimized for GameFabric workloads.
- Integrated billing: All costs are billed through GameFabric.
- Density: Supports up to 100 game servers per node.
To provision GameFabric Cloud capacity, see GameFabric Cloud.
INFO
GameFabric Cloud capacity cannot be added at Locations that are already provisioned through Bring Your Own Cloud (BYOC).
BYOC
BYOC (Bring Your Own Cloud) allows GameFabric to manage resources within a customer's own cloud provider account. The customer maintains their own cloud subscription and billing relationship with the cloud provider.
Key characteristics:
- Customer-owned infrastructure: Resources run in your cloud account.
- Customer responsibility: Ensure your cloud account has appropriate quotas and configurations to support the required resources.
- Setup via Nitrado: After granting IAM access, Nitrado creates and manages Locations and Sites.
- Multi-cloud support: Supports Google Cloud Platform, Amazon Web Services, and Microsoft Azure with full machine type flexibility.
- Separate billing: Cloud costs are billed directly by your cloud provider, preserving any negotiated rates or committed-use discounts.
- Density: Supports up to 100 game servers per node.
To set up BYOC, see Configuring your Cloud Provider.
Comparison
The following table summarizes the key differences between capacity types:
| Aspect | Bare metal | GameFabric Cloud | BYOC |
|---|---|---|---|
| Infrastructure owner | Nitrado | Nitrado | Customer |
| Cloud providers | N/A | GCP | GCP, AWS, Azure |
| Capacity request | Help Center | Self-service via UI | Help Center |
| Billing | GameFabric | GameFabric | Cloud provider |
| Game servers per node | 150 | 100 | 100 |
| Customer action required | Request via Help Center | Request via UI | IAM configuration |
Prioritizing capacity types
Use Region Types to prioritize how game servers are distributed across different capacity types. For example, configure bare metal with a higher priority (lower number) than cloud to optimize costs while still enabling burst capacity in the cloud when needed.