Incredibuild Helps Cyberconnect2 Cut Build Times by 90% and Optimize Costs Using AWS

Japanese game developer CyberConnect2 implemented a virtual distributed processing platform by AWS Partner Incredibuild to speed up its game-build times by 90 percent. When the company needed more compute power, it adopted Incredibuild Cloud on Amazon Web Services (AWS) to provide Amazon EC2 instances that can boost its compute power on demand.

Founded in 1996 in Japan, CyberConnect2 is a games development studio that has worked on titles including the NARUTO: Ultimate Ninja STORM series, Dragon Ball Z: Kakarot, and the Fuga series. It has three offices in Japan and employs 300 staff.

CyberConnect2 releases its games on a variety of gaming platforms and its developers need to build numerous installer packages every day. This is a time-consuming process that requires large amounts of compute power. However, the faster it can build its packages, the more productive its developers can be, so it’s vital for the company to take advantage of technologies that can reduce build times.

In 2008, CyberConnect2 started to use a platform delivered by AWS Partner Incredibuild that enables virtualized distributed processing in its on-premises data center. Using Incredibuild means that idle CPUs on its network can be put to work by distributing the build processes and reducing build times. “The time taken to build packages was an issue and that’s when we learned about distributed compilation technology,” says Masao Kashino, manager in the development support department at CyberConnect2. However, as the company took on bigger projects, it needed more compute power.

CyberConnect2 found the Incredibuild software easy to set up and low maintenance when installed on premises. The company found that using Incredibuild optimized its development environment and has reduced build times by up to 90 percent. “There are many different gaming platforms so each day we need to build about 11 packages,” says Shingo Watanabe, programmer in the developer division at CyberConnect2. “Before using Incredibuild, building an engine could take a day, or even two—now it takes about 2 hours.”

CyberConnect2 creates and builds its games using on-premises infrastructure spread over its three office locations in Fukuoka, Osaka, and Tokyo. As the company grew and was working on more projects, it was looking for new ways to provide additional compute power on tap, especially during peak times or when they were working on a very large project. “The amount of data we handle sometimes explodes,” says Hiroshi Matsuyama, president and chief executive officer (CEO) of CyberConnect2. “We strive to create the best possible products within a limited amount of time, so it’s very necessary to use this kind of technology to help us reduce that time.”

CyberConnect2 considered investing in more on-premises hardware but calculated it would be nowhere near as scalable or cost-effective compared to using a cloud-based solution. “Adding multiple helper PCs requires space, adds to the electricity costs, consumes many IP addresses, and still only provides a finite amount of compute power,” says Kashino. So in 2021, the company built a hybrid environment using Incredibuild on AWS.

CyberConnect2 upgraded to Incredibuild Cloud, which taps into Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2)—secure and resizable compute capacity for virtually any workload. Using AWS lets CyberConnect’s developer team easily scale the compute power up and down as required. “Now with Incredibuild Cloud, when we need a large number of cores, we can easily spin them up using AWS,” says Kashino. “It’s now become a standard feature in our development environment and is truly a must-have technology.”

In addition, CyberConnect2 can optimize its costs as Incredibuild Cloud uses Amazon EC2 Spot Instances, which run fault-tolerant workloads for up to 90 percent off. Amazon EC2 Spot Instances let you take advantage of unused EC2 capacity on AWS. While Spot Instances offer discounts, there is a chance of interruption if the instance is needed as a regular on-demand Amazon EC2 instance. However, Incredibuild Cloud can avoid interruptions by dynamically allocating resources to another Spot Instance using fallback machines. Incredibuild Cloud manages a smooth handover by transferring the relevant artifacts, cache, and memory of the interrupted machine and reproducing it on a new Spot Instance.

Reducing build times helps CyberConnect2 produce higher quality games. This is because its developers now have the ability to go back to the code and make small fixes without the project being delayed by days or even weeks as happened previously. “Using Incredibuild Cloud and AWS gives us the speed we need to build and rebuild packages to deliver better and more exciting games for our users,” says Watanabe.