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Unique Platforms Technology

Elixir, Kubernetes & AWS

ELIXIR

The programming language adopted by Unique Platforms is Elixir.

Elixir is a functional programming language built on top of Erlang.

Elixir is recognised for its ability to:

  • concurrently execute programs
  • its ability to operate on distributed systems…..
  • which itself lends to a high level of fault tolerance.

Elixir was designed to handle extremely high flows of data which is Unique Platforms’ goal.

Major businesses using Elixir include Pinterest, PepsiCo, Square Enix & Bet365.

Major business that solely needed Erlang’s scaleability include WhatsApp, WeChat and Facebook.

Concurrency

Programs can be executed sequentially so that one program is executed after another is finished. Alternatively, the whole process is speeded up if one program does not need to wait on another to end but can be executed at the same time. This latter case is called concurrent computing.

 

If programs can run concurrently then it means that the overall program can ultimately execute much more quickly. This is critically important for UP as there will be huge data flows as:

  • different target levels
  • odds calculation for each bet
  • probability of a bet winning
  • cash out amounts
  • plus many other similar functions are taking place every second for different B2C clients, different games, different time frames, etc..

Distributed Computing

Distributed computing allows large, complex tasks to be broken down into smaller, more manageable pieces that can be processed in parallel on multiple machines.

The benefits of distributed computing include:

  • increased performance and scalability
  • availability, the network of computers will not fail if one component fails
  • benefit of fault tolerance without compromising data consistency
  • faster performance with optimum resource use.

The whole concept of the cloud, e.g. AWS [see below] is based on distributed computing. For a company such as UP with a potential global player-base plus highly complex mathematical algorithms, it would be impossible to operate without Distributive Computing.

Distributed Programming

In summary, the Elixir language is arguably the ‘must-have’ language for a company with very high data flows a high load of mathematical calculations.

Kubernetes

This is the container orchestration system adopted by Amazon Web Services (AWS). What this system does is manage the workload of UP’s computer program (“Engine”).

 

Kubernetes uses ‘containers’ to automate the software deployment, scaling and management of the system based on processor usage, memory or custom metrics.

 

Although originally a Google Cloud offering, it is now open source and is used by other clouds, including Azure and Amazon Web Services.

Amazon Web Services

Unique Platforms Partner

AWS is the biggest cloud with roughly 33% of the market at the start of 2023. Azure holds 23%, Google Cloud 10% with smaller clouds making up the balance.

 

When testing in the Far East compared with AWS was significantly faster than Google Cloud.

 

AWS offer on-demand cloud computing which means that it is a pay-as-you-go contract. Combining this costing with Elixir’s concurrency and distributed programming and Kubernetes scaling and management of the system means that UP gets a lot of bang for their bucks.