Profile: sparcdude
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• • End down times - and keep EVE going 24/7

  • I believe I read most of the stuff about the differences between EVE and other gaming server set-ups and scenarios but, with as big of a player base as EVE has, scattered across the globe, this daily down-time thing seems to be a bit archaic in terms of state-of-the-art technology.

    I've worked for many big corporations with datacenters providing 24/7 server availability across the globe.  I can't see why CCP hasn't implemented the the cluster architecture on Tranquility (i.e., a three-node cluster working in a active-passive-hot standby scenario).  They would still achieve the same effect that they have now, where they mention that things aren't dispersed through mini-nodes or servers in different locations throughout the globe (keeping a scenario like that in sync is a big, big effort for IT).  In the three node cluster, they would ALWAYS have an "active" node, with another "passive" node sitting right next to it, to take over things seemlessly should the active server crash or hang.  And, of course, sitting in the same location as the other two nodes would be the "hot-standby" which would take over in the highly unlikely event that the neither the active or the passive nodes became unavailable.  With this set-up, they could effectively run EVE 24/7 and still do all the patching, hardware maintenance, and testing without ever affecting the users/players of the game - all they have to do is "fail over" to one of the other nodes when they want to take the "active" server off-line.  Provided that they set up the whole cluster properly, the users would never notice the difference - it's all transparent.  Many people don't realize that many companies and corporations have this set-up running on lots of things that we all use ever day.  We all use cell phones, right?  Well, TELCOs (AT&T, Sprint, Verizon, etc.) all have the cluster set-up on their mission-critical systems, and they have fail-overs all the time (either deliberate for maintenance work or, due to some type of failure on their servers)  - for the most part, you and I never even know that our service and features have been switched over to another one of their servers.

    I'd say three SUN Sun Fire 25Ks would do the trick for CCP - with all that horsepower and throughput, we'd all be happy campers!!

     

    Just my $0.02 worth.

     

     

  • Posted: 6/10/08 5:01 AM
    EVE Online