Managed Amazon GameLift Servers solution architecture

A game client is your software that is running on a player's device. The player plays your game by joining a game session on a hosted game server. A game client asks to join a game session through a backend service, receives connection information for a game session, and uses it to connect directly with the game session. For more information, see Preparing games for Amazon GameLift Servers. When connecting to an Realtime server, a A game client uses the client SDK for Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime.

A backend service is a custom service that you create to handle communication with the Amazon GameLift Servers service on behalf of a game client. You can also use backend services for game-specific tasks such as player authentication and authorization, inventory, or currency control. A backend service communicates with the Amazon GameLift Servers service using the API operations in the Amazon SDK.

A backend service makes requests to get existing game session information and to start game sessions. Requests for new game sessions define certain characteristics, such as the maximum number of players. These requests prompt Amazon GameLift Servers to start the game session placement process. When a game session is ready to accept players, the backend service retrieves connection information and provides it to the game client.

Your game can rely on external services, such as for validating a subscription membership. An external service can pass information to your game servers through a backend service and Amazon GameLift Servers.

A game server is your game's server software that runs on a set of hosting resources. You upload your game server software to Amazon GameLift Servers, which deploys it to the hosting resources and starts running server processes. Each game server process connects with the Amazon GameLift Servers service to signal readiness to host game sessions. It interacts with the service to start game sessions, validate newly connected players, and report the status of game sessions and player connections.

Custom game servers communicate with Amazon GameLift Servers by using the server SDK for Amazon GameLift Servers. For more information, see Integrate games with custom game servers. Realtime servers are game servers that are provided by Amazon GameLift Servers. You can customize server logic by providing a custom script. For more information, see Integrating games with Amazon GameLift Servers Realtime.

When setting up and managing hosting resources, game owners use hosting management tools to manage game server builds or scripts, fleets, matchmaking, and queues. The Amazon GameLift Servers tool set in the Amazon SDK and the console provides multiple ways for you to manage your hosting resources. You can remotely access any individual game server for troubleshooting.

A collection of compute resources that run your game servers and host game sessions for your players. For information about where you can deploy fleets, see Amazon GameLift Servers service locations. For information about creating fleets, see Setting up a hosting fleet with Amazon GameLift Servers.

An abstract identifier for a fleet that you can use to change the fleet that your players are connected to at any time. For more information, see Create an Amazon GameLift Servers alias.

A game session placement mechanism that receives requests for new game sessions and searches for available game servers to host the new sessions. For more information about game session queues, see Managing game session placement with Amazon GameLift Servers queues.