# Cloud game development: Workstations
<a name="cloud-game-development-workstations"></a>

 Game development often involves distributed teams working remotely from various locations, requiring access to shared infrastructure and the ability to support collaborative, geographically dispersed development. This trend towards a more distributed game development process, including the use of work-for-hire studios and remote work, necessitates the implementation of robust technologies and workflows to facilitate productivity, shared expertise, and agile development practices. 

 The following reference architecture demonstrates how to use AWS for hosting remote game development workstations using the Amazon DCV protocol. 

![Stream game development from anywhere with Amazon DCV](http://docs.aws.amazon.com/wellarchitected/latest/games-industry-lens/images/image7.jpeg)


1.  Amazon DCV is a streaming protocol that supports 4K, 60-FPS streaming. Developers using a browser connect through TCP connections, whereas desktop clients can use QUIC UDP over port 8443 for increased performance. 

1.  Developers use AWS Client VPN for a secure connection to network interfaces in the workstation subnets with source network address translation (SNAT). 

1.  Amazon Route 53 provides private DNS for the resources in the VPC as well as inbound and outbound DNS forwarding. 

1.  Directory Service provides managed Microsoft Active Directory to enable local game project storage mapped to individual users. 

1.  Workstations are created using an Amazon Machine Image (AMI) built with Image Builder. Images include Amazon DCV Server, developer software, registry changes, and drivers such as the NVIDIA gaming drivers or peripheral drivers. AWS Marketplace includes common AMIs used for workstations. 

1.  Fleets of workstations use graphics Amazon EC2 instance types that provide GPUs, and are scaled using EC2 Auto Scaling groups. 

1.  The Amazon DCV Session Manager Broker enables management of Amazon DCV sessions. 

1.  Local file storage of projects is hosted in Amazon FSx for Windows File Server. Developers commit to a separate CI/CD pipeline by pushing from local storage to source control.