Amazon GameLift improves FleetIQ game session placement logic

We are excited to announce updates to the Amazon GameLift FleetIQ’s ClaimGameServer operation to better handle game session placement decisions. Amazon GameLift FleetIQ optimizes the use of low-cost Amazon Elastic Compute Cloud (Amazon EC2) Spot Instances for cloud-based multiplayer game hosting. With Amazon GameLift FleetIQ, you can leverage your existing Amazon EC2 and Amazon EC2 Auto Scaling hosting resources while taking advantage of Amazon GameLift optimizations to deliver inexpensive, resilient game hosting for your players. Customers can use the GameLift FleetIQ’s ClaimGameServer operation to locate an available game server and reserve it to host their multiplayer games. Today, when trying to claim a specific game server, this request will succeed even if the game server is running on an instance that is flagged as “draining”. GameLift FleetIQ will regularly identify instances that are non-viable instance types, and flag these as “draining", which means they are terminated and replaced with new instances. During draining events, instances are de-prioritized and will only be used for new game sessions if no other game servers are available. Customers have asked us to take this a step further to prevent ClaimGameServer from selecting game servers on draining instances. With this update, ClaimGameServer now provides a filter option that allows customers to help prevent game placement on “draining” instances. This updated experience gives game developers more control when it comes to managing their GameLift FleetIQ resources. This FleetIQ update is available in all supported Amazon GameLift FleetIQ regions. Review the [release notes](https://docs.aws.amazon.com/gamelift/latest/developerguide/release-notes.html#release-notes-summary) to learn more.