Munzee gets expert sysadmin pointers, simple pricing, continual uptime, and doubled capacity through Linode Professional Services

Munzee is a free, worldwide 21st-century scavenger hunt game for mobile devices (iPhone, Android, and Windows Phone). Co-founders and friends Aaron Benzick, Scott Foster, Chris Pick and Josh Terkelsen envisioned a global game where players could use a mobile device to record the QR codes found on planted poker chips located around the world. In less than three years, Munzee has been played in more than 180 countries by nearly 200,000 players. At least one physical munzee (an alteration of the German word for coin, munze) has been placed on every continent of the world, including Antarctica, awaiting capture by players. Virtual tokens are placed anywhere by computer. When a player finds (i.e., captures) a munzee, she earns points. Those points can be tracked on a leaderboard and/or traded for badges. However, as its website says, “There is so much more to Munzee.” The company’s purpose is to perpetuate a free and fun game for everyone. Scott Foster, now VP of Technology, graciously responded by email to this case study request.

As a 24/7-365 online, global gaming diversion, Munzee has stored every capture since its 2011 launch in its inexpertly configured database. Seat-of-the-pants scaling built a functional but far from optimal platform, which hosted apps like Memcache, MongoDB, and IronMQ. Munzee has evolved from a single server handling growing traffic to scores of servers processing tens-of-thousands requests. As this online traffic grew, Foster and his crew identified a critical need for professional experience to help them determine adequate server allocation, identify sysadmin tasks contingent upon each server, and balance loads between servers. For its first two years of existence, Munzee operated on RackSpace infrastructure. This experience put into stark relief the three criteria a cloud host must exceed to capably serve Munzee’s round-the-clock, global, tech-savvy market. Foster clarified the first benchmark, “We set the bar very high in that we told Linode that downtime has to be kept to a minimum.” With a frequent global audience of tens of thousands uploading more than 100,000 captures even on a slow day, any extended downtime would demoralize players, stifle fun, jeopardize Munzee’s reputation, and seriously affect its bottom line. Downtime couldn’t be tolerated. The second benchmark, pricing, needed to be simplified and predictable. With RackSpace, monthly bills could surprise Munzee bean counters, exceeding allocations. Linode’s hourly billing, where customers pay only for the resources used each month, piqued Munzee’s interest. Finally, if Munzee were to migrate from RackSpace to Linode, it had to be done during the week, its slowest times, and not during the weekend, when most players are online.

Linode’s Professional Services would handle Munzee’s free site migrations on any weekday. Its customer support staff answered Foster questions promptly and thoroughly. “Every time I called Linode with a question,” said Foster, “anybody I talked to was able to answer the question with ease.” Munzee chose Linode and subsequently forwarded a long checklist of tasks it needed its servers to be capable of doing. Professional Services fulfilled that list. “They made things so simple,” said Foster. “Everything was perfect once all the servers were setup.” Munzee has been able to easily accommodate more than 30,000,000 total captures since 2011. Foster made it a point to compliment individuals on the Professional Service team. Describing their efforts as “above and beyond on everything,” Foster appreciated the help. Professional Services “would advise me if there was a better way to do things or call me if it was easier to talk on the phone. Anytime I open a ticket, I get a response within five minutes, even if it’s a “looking into it” which is great. I don’t have to wait until the morning for a response.” Munzee has seen its player numbers mushroom since its migration to Linode. Thrilled that he no longer has to worry about server availability, Foster and the team focus on gameplay. This past September 25 – 28, more than 200 players descended on Munzee’s McKinney, Texas headquarters. In a 24-hour stretch, Munzee handled over half a million captures without any (zero!) problems. As head of technology, Foster also “loves the fact” that he can still scale Munzee’s servers on his own, if necessary or desired, knowing full well that Professional Services is behind him, if he should need assistance. “We have been so happy with the results,” Foster states simply. “Now, I can sleep at night and not have to worry about the servers going down, and if they do - I will have knowledgeable and friendly people looking into it,” summarized Foster about his Linode experience. “We have seen a lot of growth due to the reliability and the optimization that Linode has done.”

• Munzee has been able to easily accommodate more than 30,000,000 total captures since 2011.
• Professional Services “would advise me if there was a better way to do things or call me if it was easier to talk on the phone. Anytime I open a ticket, I get a response within five minutes, even if it’s a “looking into it” which is great. I don’t have to wait until the morning for a response.”
• Munzee has seen its player numbers mushroom since its migration to Linode. Thrilled that he no longer has to worry about server availability, Foster and the team focus on gameplay.
• As head of technology, Foster also “loves the fact” that he can still scale Munzee’s servers on his own, if necessary or desired, knowing full well that Professional Services is behind him, if he should need assistance.
• “Now, I can sleep at night and not have to worry about the servers going down, and if they do - I will have knowledgeable and friendly people looking into it,” summarized Foster about his Linode experience.

• 560,000 daily captures nearly doubled previous mark
• More than 30,000,000 total captures since 2011
• Handled over half a million captures in a 24-hour stretch without any problems