google app engine - Final GAE vs AWS architectural decision -

i know has been asked 1 way or before, of main issues gae stability seem have been asked around end of 2008, 2009, or aren't directly related games @ scale (which i'm interested in).

basically, have been arguing , forth business partner whether use gae or aws back-end of our social game engine, , it's crunch time. love gae (java) many reasons, , although used unstable, it's pretty now. main argument in favour of aws fact aws has proven multiple games running tens of millions of active users per day. obvious pin-up child aws zynga, farmville peaking @ 80+million dau. , that's 1 of hugely successful games running on aws infrastructure. remarkable achievement.

so, 1 way or it's known work. gae on other hand doesn't have examples find doing these sorts of numbers. not close. so can trust it? there single example of large social game 2 million+ daily active users, using gae?

the main considerations our social game back-end are:

1. reliable cdn (amazon cloudfront/s3 excellent this, google's excellent datastore).
2. ability scale without falling on (aws-ec2 proven here, gae doesn't seem have examples of large game apps can run 1000s of requests per second. gae used quite unstable in regard , main concern).
3. reliable no-sql database. (aws-simpledb , google's datastore both excellent this. don't need sql).
4. support/someone call/contact if there problem. (this 1 of biggest worries gae. have no idea can call, or if it's possible. aws has sla , support.)

i forward thoughts, please note, not intended start sort of flame war. love both systems, both have positives , negatives, i'm make architectural decision won't undone moving forward.

regards,

shane

i've never worked aws-ec2 i'm going share knowledge on google app engine side.

1. google app engine not meant cdn; though can serve static content through powerful infrastructure providing caching close users, not guarantee same kind of high quality , high availability service of real cdn because it's not part of duties.
   further data:
   • maximum size of file using blobstore service: 2 gigabytes
   • maximum size of static file: 10 megabytes
   • currently app engine always returns 200 status static files on conditional gets (you have rely on third party caching library cirruxcache example).

2. recently google app engine team has shut down app gallery 1 simple reason: many toy apps!
   google wants counteract tendency showing successful businesses case studies; here of them:

   • buddypoke (viral facebook app 65 million installs)
   • walkscore (serves 3 million request day thousands of real estate partner sites)
   • webfillings
   • snapabug
   • optimizely
   • ubisoft facebook tiktok game

   other interesting case studies here

3. "we aware of downtimes , reliability issues, , working hard solve them: improving app engine reliability our number 1 priority" said google developer relations manager here.
   app engine still in beta , evolving platform have prepared deal downtimes , issues.

4. google app engine team has launched preview of app engine business providing 99.9% uptime service level agreement , premium developer support available.

here opinion it's worth:
i'm aware it's tough call; having read lot of articles gae have mixed feelings because can go recent catastrophic carlos ble report happy experience of flower garden or gri.pe.
app engine business looks promising , consider in case of serious business project plan. fresh sdk 1.4.0 huge , shows team pushing hard fix annoying issues (warmup requests) , relaxing limitations (10 minutes process on taskqueue).

last thing consider: if going have big numbers, google app engine team take app successfull case study follow boost of free , powerful hype.