What is CPU Bursting?

CPU Bursting is a proprietary feature developed by Pufferfish Host, which aims to give your server extra performance boosts when necessary. It works similar to CPU bursting features by enterprise cloud platforms like Google Cloud Platform.

As your server is running, CPU resources are consumed at different rates. If a plugin on your server needs to perform a particularly intensive task, then you may see a lag spike due to an increase in CPU usage. Other dedicated server hosts will throttle you to a maximum limit, not allowing you to use any extra resources, even if your node has them available. At Pufferfish Host, we don't agree with this. Why waste CPU resources?

With Pufferfish Host's CPU Bursting feature, these lag spikes would be prevented. Instead of limiting your CPU usage, we would allow you to temporarily use additional CPU resources, while they are available. When CPU bursts are active, your server can use up to 2x its typical CPU allocation, which is an effective way to minimize or eliminate lag spikes due to these periodic intensive tasks.

In fact, we've thoroughly benchmarked our CPU burst feature to prove that it actually makes a difference. In this benchmark, we compared Pufferfish Host's 6GB plan with similar plans from our competitors. With CPU bursting disabled, we saw an insignificant difference in performance between us and our competitors, as expected. However, with CPU bursting enabled, we saw an obvious difference in the severity of lag spikes:

We also were able to observe significantly faster server startup times due to CPU bursts being applied during server startup (startup times mesasured on Paper 1.17 with no plugins):

CPU Bursting is enabled according to a proprietary algorithm that automatically determines when your server needs the extra power. CPU Bursts can last anywhere from a few seconds to a few minutes, depending on how large the resource requirements are. If your server is using a greater percentage of its resource allocation, then CPU bursts will last for a shorter period of time.

When your server is using its CPU burst allocation, it does not get priority over other servers on the machine. CPU bursts are not guaranteed, but due to how resources are typically consumed on Minecraft servers, they are likely to always be available. If your server is using all of its normal allocation, then another server will not be eligible to burst onto your server's CPU cores.

Overall, Pufferfish Host's CPU Burst technology is a great way to minimize lag spikes that occur during a server's normal operation, and will give your server extra resources when required. Creating a platform that delivers the absolute maximum performance is our goal, and with this CPU bursting feature, your server will perform far better.