Create a fleet Migrate to managed EC2 Host games in multiple on-premises locations

Create a GameLift Anywhere fleet

Use Amazon GameLift to integrate hardware from your environment into your GameLift game hosting. GameLift Anywhere registers your hardware with GameLift in an Anywhere fleet. You can integrate Anywhere and managed EC2 fleets in matchmaker and game session queues to manage matchmaking and game placement.

To get started, download the GameLift server SDK version 5 or greater and review the following important concepts for using a GameLift Anywhere fleet.

Custom locations

GameLift Anywhere fleets use custom locations to represent the physical locations of your infrastructure.

Device registration

For a GameLift Anywhere fleet to communicate with your compute resources, you must first register your device. You can complete device registration from the GameLift SDK using the RegisterCompute operation. This operation uses the IP address of the device to associate it with a fleet location and communicate with GameLift.

Authentication tokens

When you initialize a game server on your compute, the GameLift Server SDK uses an auth token to authenticate your game server to GameLift. You can re-use the same auth token for all game servers on the same compute, up to the auth token expiration time. To retrieve the auth token, call the get-compute-auth-token AWS Command Line Interface (AWS CLI) command. Pass the token to each game server as needed.

Game sessions

When you use a GameLift Anywhere fleet, the fleet automatically launches a game session for each server process on your compute. Each game session on a compute uses the same authentication token created while registering the compute to a fleet location.

The following diagram shows a game session queue that uses FlexMatch matchmaking and multiple fleets. The fleets include an EC2 fleet with C5 instances, an Anywhere fleet with a development laptop, and an Anywhere fleet with a customer-hosted server rack.

A diagram of a game session queue that uses an managed EC2 fleet and two
Anywhere fleets.

Topics

Create a fleet
Migrate to managed EC2
Host games in multiple on-premises locations

Create a fleet

Use either the GameLift console or the AWS CLI to create an Anywhere fleet.

After you create a new Anywhere fleet, the fleet's status moves from NEW to ACTIVE. When it reaches ACTIVE status, the fleet is ready to host game sessions. For help with fleet creation issues, see Debug GameLift fleet issues.

Console

To create an Anywhere fleet

Open the GameLift console.
In the navigation pane, under Hosting, choose Locations.
On the Locations page, choose Create location.
In the Create location dialog box, do the following:
1. Enter a Location name. This labels the location of your hardware that GameLift uses to run your games in Anywhere fleets. GameLift appends the name of your custom location with custom-.
2. (Optional) Add tags as key-value pairs to your custom location. Choose Add new tag for each tag that you want to add.
3. Choose Create.
Create an Anywhere fleet.
1. In the navigation pane, under Hosting, choose Fleets.
2. On the Fleets page, choose Create fleet.
3. On the Compute type step, choose Anywhere, and then choose Next.
4. On the Fleet details step, define the details, and then choose Next.
5. On the Custom locations step, select the custom location that you created, and then choose Next. GameLift automatically selects the home AWS Region as the Region that you're creating the fleet in. You can use the home Region to access and use your resources.
6. Complete the remaining fleet creation steps, and then choose Submit to create your Anywhere fleet.

Register your laptop as a compute resource in the fleet that you created. Use the register-compute AWS CLI command. Include the fleet-id of the fleet that you created in the previous step. Add a compute-name and your laptop's ip-address.


aws gamelift register-compute \
    --compute-name HardwareAnywhere \
    --fleet-id fleet-1234 \
    --ip-address 10.1.2.3 \
    --location custom-location-1


Compute {
    FleetId = fleet-1234,
    ComputeName = HardwareAnywhere,
    Status = ACTIVE,
    IpAddress = 10.1.2.3,
    GameLiftServiceSdkEndpoint = wss://12345678.execute-api.amazonaws.com/,
    Location = custom-location-1
}

AWS CLI

To create an Anywhere fleet

Create a custom location using the create-location command. The location-name labels the location of your hardware that GameLift uses to run your games in Anywhere fleets.
```
aws gamelift create-location \
    --location-name custom-location-1
```
Output
```
{
    Location {
        LocationName = custom-location-1
    }
}
```
Create an Anywhere fleet using the create-fleet command. Include your custom location in locations. GameLift creates the fleet in your home Region and in the custom locations that you provide.
```
aws gamelift create-fleet \
    --name HardwareAnywhere \
    --compute-type ANYWHERE
    --locations custom-location-1
```
Example output
```
Fleet {
    Name = HardwareAnywhere,
    ComputeType = ANYWHERE,
    FleetId = fleet-1234,
    Status = ACTIVE,
    ...
}
```

Register your laptop as a compute resource in the fleet that you created. Use the register-compute command. Include the fleet-id returned in the previous step, and add a compute-name and your laptop's ip-address.


aws gamelift register-compute \
    --compute-name HardwareAnywhere \
    --fleet-id fleet-1234 \
    --ip-address 10.1.2.3 \
    --location custom-location-1

Example output


Compute {
    FleetId = fleet-1234,
    ComputeName = HardwareAnywhere,
    Status = ACTIVE,
    IpAddress = 10.1.2.3,
    GameLiftServiceSdkEndpoint = wss://12345678.execute-api.amazonaws.com/
    Location = custom-location-1
}

Migrate to managed EC2

After you've developed your game server and you're ready to prepare for production, you can have GameLift manage your hardware. To migrate to a managed EC2 fleet, upload your build to GameLift and create a managed EC2 fleet. For more information about uploading your build and setting up a fleet, see Upload a custom server build to GameLift and Create a managed fleet.

Host games in multiple on-premises locations

You can integrate your on-premises hardware with the rest of your GameLift managed fleets to manage game sessions in one place. In the following example, there are three servers across eastern, central, and western Europe.

Console

Add your resources to an Anywhere fleet

Open the GameLift console.
In the navigation pane, under Hosting, choose Locations.
On the Locations page, choose Create location.
In the Create location dialog box, do the following:
1. Enter a Location name. For example, eu-east, eu-central, or eu-west. This name labels the location of your hardware that GameLift uses to run your games in Anywhere fleets. GameLift appends the name of your custom location with custom-.
2. (Optional) Add tags as key-value pairs to your custom location. Choose Add new tag for each tag that you want to add.
3. Choose Create.
Repeat the previous step until you've added the location of each server that you want to register. In this example, custom-eu-east, custom-eu-central, and custom-eu-west.
Create an Anywhere fleet.
1. In the navigation pane, under Hosting, choose Fleets.
2. On the Fleets page, choose Create fleet.
3. On the Compute type step, choose Anywhere, and then choose Next.
4. On the Fleet details step, define the details, and then choose Next.
5. On the Custom locations step, select the custom locations that you created, and then choose Next. GameLift automatically selects the home Region as the Region that you're creating the fleet in. You can use the home Region to access and use your resources.
6. Complete the remaining fleet creation steps, and then choose Submit to create your Anywhere fleet.
Register one of your servers as a compute resource in the fleet that you created. Use the register-compute AWS CLI command. Include the fleet-id of the fleet that you created in the previous step. Add a compute-name and your server rack's ip-address.
```
aws gamelift register-compute \
    --compute-name eu-east \
    --fleet-id fleet-1234 \
    --ip-address 10.1.2.3 \
    --location custom-eu-east
```
Example output
```
Compute {
    FleetId = fleet-1234,
    ComputeName = eu-east,
    Status = ACTIVE,
    IpAddress = 10.1.2.3,
    GameLiftServiceSdkEndpoint = wss://12345678.execute-api.amazonaws.com/
    Location = custom-eu-east
}
```
Repeat the previous step for each server that you want to register.

AWS CLI

Add your resources to an Anywhere fleet

Create a custom location resource for each server using the create-location command. The location-name labels the location of each server that GameLift uses to run your games in Anywhere fleets.


aws gamelift create-location --location-name custom-eu-east
aws gamelift create-location --location-name custom-eu-central
aws gamelift create-location --location-name custom-eu-west

Output:


Location {
  LocationName = custom-eu-east
}
Location {
  LocationName = custom-eu-central
}
Location {
  LocationName = custom-eu-west
}

Create an Anywhere fleet using the create-fleet command. Include the three custom locations that you created in the previous step.


aws gamelift create-fleet \
    --fleet-name EuropeFleet \
    --compute-type ANYWHERE \
    --locations Location=custom-eu-east Location=custom-eu-central Location=custom-eu-west

Example output:


Fleet {
  Name = EuropeFleet,
  FleetId = fleet-1234,
  ComputeType = Anywhere,
  Status = ACTIVE,
  Locations = [
    custom-eu-east, custom-eu-central, custom-eu-west
  ],
  ...
}

Register one of your servers as a compute resource in the fleet that you created. Use the register-compute command. Include the fleet-id returned in the previous step. Add a compute-name and your server rack's ip-address.


aws gamelift register-compute \
    --fleet-id fleet-1234 \
    --compute-name eu-east-7 \
    --ip-address 10.1.2.3 \
    --location custom-eu-east

Example output:


Compute {
  FleetId = fleet-1234,
  ComputeName = eu-east-7,
  Location = eu-east,
  Status = ACTIVE,
  IpAddress = 10.1.2.3,
  GameLiftServiceSdkEndpoint = wss://12345678.execute-api.amazonaws.com/
}

Repeat the previous step for each server that you want to register.
Get your servers ready to handle a game session.
1. Get the authentication token for your laptop from the fleet that you created.
```
aws gamelift get-compute-auth-token \
    --fleet-id fleet-1234 \
    --compute-name eu-east-7
```
  Example output:
```
ComputeAuthToken {
  FleetId = fleet-1234,
  ComputeName = eu-east-7,
  AuthToken = abcdefg123,
  ExpirationTime = 1897492857.11
}
```
2. Run an instance of your game server executable. To run this, your game server must call InitSDK(). After the process is ready to host a game session, the game server calls ProcessReady().
  
  Server SDK input:
```
InitSdk(FleetId=fleet-1234, ComputeName=eu-east-7, ProcessId=1234-5679, ComputeAuthToken=abcdefg123, GameLiftServiceSdkEndpoint=wss://12345678.execute-api.amazonaws.com)
```
```
ProcessReady(Port=1024)
```
  Output:
```
Response - 200 for Success
```
Start your game session using the start-matchmaking, start-game-session-placement, or create-game-session command.
```
aws gamelift create-game-session \
    --fleet-id fleet-1234 \
    --name EastGameSession \
    --maximum-player-session-count 2 \
    --location custom-eu-east
```
Example output:
```
GameSession {
  FleetId = fleet-1234,
  GameSessionId = 4444-4444,
  Name = EastGameSession,
  Location = custom-eu-east,
  IpAddress = 10.1.2.3,
  Port = 1024,
  ...
}
```
GameLift sends an onCreateGameSession() message to your registered server process. The message contains the GameSession object from the previous step with game properties, game sessions data, matchmaker data, and more about the game session.
Add logic to your game server so that your server process responds to the onCreateGameSession() message with ActivateGameSession(). This operation has no parameters, but it sends an acknowledgement to GameLift that your server received and accepted the create game session message.
When the game session is complete, end the game process.

Server SDK input:
```
ProcessEnding()
```
Output:
```
Response - 200 for Success
```
Then, prepare the game for the next session.

Server SDK input:
```
ProcessReady(Port=1024)
```
Output:
```
Response - 200 for Success
```

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