Riot Games have announced their partnership with CISCO making CISCO the official enterprise networking partner for LoL Esports.
The partnership with Cisco will provide Riot with reliable infrastructure and networking capabilities across five continents and three global events that will improve the competitive experience for pro players as well as enhance the viewing experience for fans.
The Realm – Competitive Esports Server Upgrade
League of Legends – a multiplayer online battle arena video game developed by Riot Games – is the No. 1 PC game in the world. And LoL Esports is the largest growing sport globally, reaching a record-breaking 21.8 million average minute audience (AMA) for the 2019 World Championship Final.
League of Legends is an esport that requires quick strategic planning and fast reaction timing. Cisco’s networking solutions will power “The Realm” – the private game server used exclusively for pro-level competitive LoL Esports matches at three major global events: The League of Legends World Championship, The Mid-Season Invitational, and The All-Star Event. With Cisco technology being implemented pro players can expect to compete on Summoner’s Rift at sub-1ms ping, allowing for near instantaneous reaction times and uninterrupted gameplay. Additionally, the new Cisco servers are expected to offer up to 200% raw performance improvement over the previous technology.
They have also announced a new collaborative global infrastructure and networking upgrades called Global Esports Networking.
In order to power the next decade of esports, Riot Esports will deploy a new collaborative global infrastructure and networking upgrades. Cisco’s global and regional footprint allows Riot the flexibility, accessibility and security needed to produce world-class esports events in all corners of the globe. Using Cisco’s advanced networking technology, fans at home will be able to watch LoL Esports broadcast streams with reduced delay and improved quality, bringing them closer to the action.
Regional Broadcast Center Upgrades
As part of a global initiative to standardize and promote competitive integrity around the world, Riot Games will deploy more than 200 new tournament game servers in regional studios all centrally managed though Cisco’s new Intersight SaaS solution. Using Cisco’s UCS B-Series Blade Servers, C-Series Rack Servers and Nexus 3000/7000 Series Switches, Riot Games will establish a common infrastructure footprint across the 12 RBCs including virtualization, storage, and computing to deliver improved performance with reduced latency for regional professional gameplay. Cisco blade nodes can easily adapt and support the broadcast centers without the need for new hardware, allowing for potential new esport applications to come online with ease.
Global Riot Object Storage
As a worldwide leader in esports, Riot Games will undergo a major, global expansion of their object storage system to support content distribution, media processing, and global content archive. Using Cisco’s Storage Optimized Computing Solutions, Riot will build an archive to protect their legacy of content that will more than triple the amount of usable storage and capacity.
“As a sport completely reliant on technology, it is essential that League of Legends runs on a trusted and reliable network,” said Scott Adametz, Esports Tech Lead at Riot Games. “With Cisco as a partner, we now are able to build and expand the infrastructure necessary to deliver the best esports experience possible for fans and professional players all over the world.”
“Our partnership with Riot Games brings together the leaders in esports and networking to offer the best possible connected experience for the players and millions of fans around the world,” said Brian Eaton, Director of Global Sports Marketing at Cisco. “Cisco is committed to redesigning the internet for the future, and esports has a big impact on that goal. With more people online than ever before for work and entertainment, it is critical to have a highly secure, flexible infrastructure in place to help ensure the visual quality and speed that will be required in the future.”
At Great in Gaming we are thrilled to see the focus placed on better user experience and gameplay and we are looking forward to seeing these two giants set up the best in class infrastructure for the future of Esports!
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Link to CISCO press release: https://blogs.cisco.com/news/ping-beware-the-cisco-network-has-entered-the-realm
Photo and Video credits: LOL Esports, CISCO