Rackspace to Host MLG Pro Gaming

Managed hosting provider Rackspace will provide web hosting for Major League Gaming (MLG), one of the leading competitive gaming leagues, the company said this week. MLG said it chose Rackspace for its "enterprise-class infrastructure and global hosting provider with digital media expertise" with scalability capacity to keep up with their growth.

"We have hundreds of thousands of registered users who want their MLG content on demand, so we've got a lot riding on the availability of our infrastructure," explained Paul Sullivan, MLG's Vice President of Product Development. "Rackspace has been essential in prescribing the appropriate technology architecture for our expanding IT needs. Their technical expertise and 100 percent network uptime guarantee have been instrumental as we prepare for a global expansion of our league."

Competitive gaming has been experiencing strong growth as it gains media visibility, with champion Jonathan "Fatal1ty" Wendel being profiled in the Wall Street Journal and on "60 Minutes." Two other major leagues, the CyberAthlete Professional League and the Cyberathlete Amateur League, are hosted at The Planet. Low latency ("lag") is crucial in the multiplayer first-person shooter games used in these leagues, as a slow connection can muck up gameplay and/or leave a player at a competitive disadvantage.

"Major League Gaming has entrusted Rackspace to develop and manage their infrastructure to run a mission-critical broadband business that requires 100 percent uptime and incredible scalability to meet the demands of their users," said Glenn Reinus, Senior Vice President of Worldwide Sales for Rackspace Managed Hosting. "Uptime is critical for these sophisticated web applications, and we believe that, with Rackspace's Zero-Downtime Network and Fanatical Support, MLG will enjoy a world-class gaming environment to showcase their ground-breaking media online and at their national competitions."

Rackspace, which is based in San Antonio, Texas, was recently named the most reliable web host by Netcraft for the sixth time in 11 months this year. The home page for the Rackspace.com web site did not have a measurable outage from March 2004 through November 2005, when it experienced three minutes of downtime, and hasn't had one since.