How to write a multiplayer game that uses a dedicated server?

All of the tutorials I have seen use the players as hosts. Is there a way to use the HLAPI to build a game with a dedicated server? Any books/tutorial links would be greatly appreciated!

My Ideal setup would be to even be able to run my own server on AWS, but I don'ty think you could do something like that without using the low level api.

I will need to store user account data (wins, kills, damage delt, math info) in a DB as well, and I don't know how this will work with unitys cloud setup.

Thanks!

Sammy