How to create multiple game servers?

Question

As the title said, how to create multiple game servers?

I am about to develop an online game, and this is my first time. Game play in flash and database things are handled by php and mysql. I have questions about server. After user logged in, they should select a server. How do I create multiple servers for users to select? Is it better to separate it or use 1 centralized server? (lets assuming the game may need to handle 1000 players in one time).

How to create different server? Can it be done just using PHP and MySQL??

(Um, sorry for my bad english..)

Answer 1

If this is your first time developing an online game, I would definitely start with just one server. With modern systems, handling 1000 players online at one time in a single server should be possible. If you need to scale up to more players and you find you are running into performance limitations, then investigate multiple servers.