HashCube Case Study

HashCube is a social gaming company that develops fun, puzzle games for social networks and mobile devices. Users play games online on the social network of their choice. Games like Sudoku, Loop to Loop, and DotGame, give social network users the opportunity to socialize with friends through the games. With the recently released iPhone Sudoku, iPhone users can play Sudoku on their mobile phones.

Initially, HashCube used several virtual private server (VPS) services for its computing. However, the VPS infrastructure failed to provide the reliability that is so crucial to a startup company. Serious uptime issues forced the company to look at alternative solutions.

After exploring different options, the company turned to Amazon Web Services (AWS) because “AWS is the most reliable, scalable, and affordable hosting service out there,” says Ramprasad Rajendran, cofounder of HashCube. Since incorporating Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) and Amazon Simple Storage Service (Amazon S3) into its architecture, HashCube runs its Web Server and MySQL in a single instance. Amazon EC2 manages computing capacity for the Website’s traffic while Amazon S3 stores customer and user information.

HashCube’s reliability has improved dramatically since migrating to AWS. Ramprasad explains: “We serve more than 1.5 million users with a single server on Amazon EC2. Our server has been up for more than 450 days without any problem. We have had almost 100% uptime.” The reliability and security of the AWS infrastructure is quite different from the volatility of HashCube’s Website under the previous VPS configuration.

Growth is always a concern for startup companies, but Amazon EC2 puts those fears to rest by giving companies the ability to scale up and down based on their computing needs. By scaling up during peak times or scaling down during lulls, companies can effectively meet the demands of user traffic without affecting performance.

The “pay-as-you-go” pricing structure makes AWS an extremely affordable solution. Because users pay only for the computing capacity used, they can noticeably improve the bottom line—a very important feature for startups like HashCube as well as older, established companies.