Case Study: Smart Bomb Interactive scales to 2.5× more concurrent players and eliminates disconnects with Azul Systems' Zing

Smart Bomb Interactive Targets Azul Zing to Deliver a Seamless Social Gaming Experience

Smart Bomb Interactive, the maker of family-friendly online worlds like Animal Jam, was hit by rapid growth that stressed its Java-based socket servers—memory pressure and “old generation” garbage collection caused pauses of more than 30 seconds and began disconnecting players as concurrent users neared 8,000–10,000 per node. To address this, the company turned to AZUL SYSTEMS and its Azul Zing runtime.

By deploying AZUL SYSTEMS’ Azul Zing, Smart Bomb increased per-node capacity by 2.5× and eliminated the long GC stalls that were dropping users, allowing them to serve far more users with fewer nodes, improve session stability and retention, and create a scalable foundation for continued growth.

Smart Bomb Interactive

Kris Johnson

Chief Operating Officer