Power Outages [Today: Update]

[RAIST]

I'm not sure how people get the idea that servers are still room sized hulks like the super computers you see from the likes of IBM. FFXI was brought online almost 10 years ago and server hardware at the time was MUCH less capable than your avg home PC today. You can be sure over the years that consolidation through the use of virtualization software has taken place to reduce the hardware "footprint" and cost of maintaining the game.

Another known fact is SE has already moved the location of the servers a number of times since FFXI has been in operation including a move just recently and it certainly didn't take them a month to do so.

As far as the radiation is concerned. The levels in Tokyo last I heard were nowhere near dangerous levels but in the event of a complete meltdown and a shift of winds carrying the airborne radioactive particles that could change quickly but for now there would be no danger of collecting the hardware required to resume operations and they could probably even safely turn the servers back on if needed for a short time to gather a backup of the latest data in the event they wish to just put other hardware in operation and restore the data to it.

It's already been made public that most of the major data centers in Tokyo have reserved fuel and plan to continue 24/7 service through the blackouts.

http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/a...for-blackouts/

Guess you missed the recent example I gave in this thread (with a picture I might add) of the data center that just hosts fansites. No email server for 1800 employees. no 25 world servers for the game it self. No lobby servers for the various regions. No in-game messaging servers. No development center servers. No QA testing servers (which, by the way do have their own rack of blade server for as well). And then all the other servers needed for other daily support/business operations. This is just for hosting the fansites them selves. Here's the link to the post, in case you missed it:

http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ll=1#post29758

Also, bear in mind this pic doesn't show any of the beastly UPS solutions. If they don't use the humongous car battery sized units that WILL essentially cover a wall, the rack mounted ones can easly take up 3U's in a rack for each one, and you may need more than one per rack. You also have to provide 2 220v lines with a locking 3-prong plug to provide them power, which is a non-standard outlet.

In otherwords...setting up a large-scale datacenter takes a lot of planning, and not something you just pick up and move. I worked on a 5 server move across town 2 years ago for a small software firm (only 11 employees btw, some who worked remotely and didn't have a local office) and it took us a weekend to make the move.

Raist

Edit: oh, and here's another goody for those who still don't grasp the concept of just how large scale an operation this may be. It's an article about how SE set up their in-house messaging system, including the layout of their hardware:

http://media.netapp.com/documents/square-enix.pdf