Want an effective way to create real-time multiplayer games using a single suite of services and your developers' collective coding genius? We recently met a Microsoft BizSpark company that is basing just such a solution on Windows Azure. Metal Compass, co-founded by CTO Roman Levin, runs totally on Azure.
They are the makers of ATK, which --- and this is really cool -- can run on an iPhone on a special mount that looks just like a gun.
BizSpark: Tell us who you are and your role in the company:
Roman Levin: I'm the co-Founder and the CTO of the company. I'm in-charge of the hardware development and our back-end solutions.
BizSpark: What is your company’s mission?
Roman Levin: Be the leading company in real-world gaming experiences.
BizSpark: In 140 characters or less, tell us what your company does:
Roman Levin: We create hardware and software tools for the creation of real-world gaming experiences.
BizSpark: Tell us about your Azure based solution.
Roman Levin: We have developed a platform (which is exposed using an API and a web site) that allows developers to create real-time multiplayer games. Mostly combat simulations (such as a laser-tag simulation that we have developed and launched in Israel – called ATK). The platform is running totally on Azure – using Web Roles, Worker Roles, SQL Azure, Web sites and more…
BizSpark: How is Azure implemented in your solution?
Roman Levin: All the platform is based on Azure.
BizSpark: How did you get excited about Azure?
Roman Levin: We have developed a solution that was running on dedicated servers and found out that it's too damn hard to take care of the servers and scale them. Thus we looked for a better solution and Azure was a great place to start. We stayed.
BizSpark: What were the Azure features that prompted you to decide to build on Azure?
Roman Levin: SQL Azure and Web Roles. Sacling is a breath, which was also a major factor for us.
BizSpark: What advice do you have for companies that are thinking about building in the cloud?
Roman Levin: They should target the design of their architecture to the cloud, from the start. Re-writing code, as we did, is very time consuming and is prone to errors. It might require some different kind of thinking, but the pros outweigh the cons.
BizSpark: What is the one thing that you would like readers to take away about your Azure app?
Roman Levin: It's awesome and will launch very soon for developers.