Question

I’m currently building an application that is about VOIP / random chatting, which is similar to skype or chatroullet. My question is extension to this

https://stackoverflow.com/questions/11384155/running-java-server-application-24-7-not-on-local-machine

I’ve been experimenting and playing around with TCP / UDP sockets and now I have ability to build VOIP / instant chatting applications. But as you might already know, in order for data transmission between client to client or client to server, the server application has to be powered on (in other word, be online) and be accessible by client applications. The problem is that, I’m not living by my self but with my family, which I can’t simply use one of my computer to run my server application for 24/7 mainly due to the electricity bills and my lack of knowledge about the networking concerns me about the security, because I had to go through some configuration / port forwarding on my current router in order to make the protocol accessible by other users outside of my local network. So my biggest question is that, how do people or developers normally have been dealing with this kind of situations? Have they been simply using their own computer to run the server application? or have they purchased an external machine to run the server application

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Additional question:

Is TCP / UDP socket the only way of making applications such as MMO, VOIP and instant chatting programs?

Answer 1

i see that your topic was closed in the previous thread. I think such questions are unrelated to stackoverflow.

However, i would like to give you a glimpse of what is happening to most of us who own / make Java Web Applications. I used to work in a datacenter for a year and a half. Java applications are a little harder to put online as they require resources that not many data centres are willing to invest time and support in. Other than that, they are pretty much as straightforward as normal PHP applications.

You will need the standard options like Colocation, Dedicated Server, VPS, Cloud Virtual Machine, or a shared tomcat / application server hosting.

Colocation is where you put your own purchased and configured server with the data center, you have complete ownership of the server, nobody can touch it unless permitted by yourself. You pay to put your server into the data center, and are in charged of anything that happens within the server, including OS patch.

Usually servers in data centers (due to size constraint) come in rack units. 1U refers to 1 rack space, usually this is equivalent to one PC, although a server is much more powerful. In Singapore, the charges per U is SG$200.

Dedicated server is where you lease a server from the data center. The server is managed by the data center and can be as powerful as you want it to be. OS updates, installations, service guarantees are provided by the data center.

VPS is having a fraction of a server resource, but many challenge that you do not have the “root” access to the server in most cases.

Cloud is the virtualization of the entire operating system. If this was Linux, you would have the root access to it. Many of us now are going for this option because of its scalability. Some data centers may use popular virtualization hypervisors like VMware ESXi, Microsoft Hyper V.

The list above is represented from the most expensive to the least. Of course, that is depending on your location and service provider.

Hardly anybody i know tries to put a running server at home, it is a fire hazard itself, you will not know when your electricity will be cut off, standard dedicated bandwidth would as expensive.

Hosting with a data center would be much cost efficient and safer in my opinion.

EDIT:
Is TCP / UDP socket the only way of making applications such as MMO, VOIP and instant chatting programs?

Have you looked at HTML 5 Web Sockets, or any AJAX based framework for this?