Next review date for servers, Tues 22nd JST

[Cem]

But you send data electronically, correct? With rolling blackouts that would be very inefficient in itself wouldn't it? With the massive size of the game it would probably take over this week in downtime that we're are experiencing, correct? I fail to see why anyone would be upset over this incidence. A week to explore other things and a month of free play when it comes back up.

I'm using this time to replay FFX and maybe crack into one of the RPGs that have just been gathering dust since I play FFXI in my game-time :P. I just hope the country as a whole doesn't suffer any more let alone one company's income for a month.

It would not take as long as you think to replicate this data. Remember they have all of their circuits free of data traffic. They could run them wide open and not have to worry about causing issues with game play as there is no game play atm.

[Vivivivi]

Sheesh. The FFXIV producer already stated that while most of the SE Japan team is safe and accounted for many of them have family and loved ones directly affected by the tragedy, and clearly have more important issues to deal with than bringing our ENTERTAINMENT back online.

This is one of those exceptionally rare, ACTS OF GOD, and sure perhaps having an off shore backup solution wouldn't have been a bad idea, but people need to get a grip, this was deemed the fifth largest recorded earthquake recorded in history, not exactly something that can be planned for. Not to mention for all we know many of the chief operating decisions likely happen in Japan, and have their attention focused elsewhere at the moment.

Sure I'm bummed that I have a free weekend coming up without FFXI, but I am willing to be patient until the SE team is up and operating business as usual during this time of crisis. In the meantime, I'm giving WOW a go, and the new Dissidia game, but as soon as FFXI is back, so will I.

[NightDagger]

You sir hit the nail on the head about what they should do DR wise to get it back up! All they need to do is find a hosting data center and replicate the data. They have a month before they need to give out another free month. Unfortunately, I think SE is missing the fact that the longer they go without doing this, the more they hurt their player base. If this game is not up before 3-4 weeks of downtime, they wont have a player base left. All of the hardcore MMO players that have had subscriptions for years will be gone. All you will have left are your casual gamers that wont be able to do much given the lack of people left on the server. People play this game because of the addiction to it. Experts say it takes 22 days to break an addiction. That I think is the point of no return for SE in this case.

This is 100% factual. I have been saying this since day 1. You can not expect the whole player base to just sit here and say "we understand what you are doing & will be here when you return". That would only happen in a perfect world. As we speak I am just starting rift for the first time. Now if I do get addicted (which will only take a week tops) then FFXI will be on the back burner until I get bored of rift. I am not the only one doing this. If this is down for 10 months the next world merge will have to have some adjustments. They will have to make it 3 worlds merging instead of 2.

On a good note, most people that will be quitting will have to log onto POL to do so (or use the website) now while the player is there discontinuing their service the might feel the need to log in to FFXI just to see how many people are online, If they have friends that are online they will start chatting, maybe end up doing something with them & BAM they are logging out to re-activate their account cause they got their FF fix & want more.

[slakyak]

In the meantime, I'm giving WOW a go, and the new Dissidia game, but as soon as FFXI is back, so will I.

Curse you and your earlier release date! Got to wait until next week for Prologus here in the UK. At this rate I'm going to have to go to this "outside" I keep hearing people talk about.

[Vivivivi]

Curse you and your earlier release date! Got to wait until next week for Prologus here in the UK. At this rate I'm going to have to go to this "outside" I keep hearing people talk about.

Sorry worry! I will say it's way better than the first one so far

[RAIST]

Apparently, you guys have never dealt with replicating data, so have no concept of how long it takes. Pulling just a 20GB DB over the internet on a T1 (common business class speed of 1.5Mbit/sec) can take all day. Now, we are talking about terabytes of data. They JUST moved the POL database to a new server and it took @12 hours. That was in-house, on their own network. Worst case scenario, that was on a 10Mbit transfer rate if their network is 20 years out of date--which I assure you it is not. We are talking about upwards of 30 servers that would have to be moved. Even if they did a disk-to-disk back up of the servers and shipped that SAN overseas, they would need more than just a few hours of uptime for EACH SERVER to back them up. So, they might get 3 or 4 done in a day because of the rolling blackouts. So, no matter what... you would be looking at at least a week just to get a current backup of everything. Then, they have to get everything restored at the new site once that SAN is shipped over, then once they verify all is good, they have to change the DNS records--so you're talking another week plus the time to ship the drive array with the backups. Best case scenario, you're talking 2 1/2 weeks.

If SE were going to do this, there would be an exhaustive planning effort because they would not be doing this as a temporary fix. All the legal/business red tap and crap that goes along with it--re-locating talent and what not--would take some advanced planning as well.

Maybe once they are able to get back up and running with some sense of normalcy, they will look into a contingency plan. Maybe not. It's not like this is a common occurence for them. This is the first time I've seen anything remotely like it myself in like 6 years.

Raist

[NightDagger]

Man i posted almost the exact same thing in another thread. they could do it but I would personally say that as of right now it is not worth it for them. IF they knew for certain they would be down for 1-2 months I am sure this would be exactly what they would be looking into doing (if they are not already creating the backups just in case).

[Cem]

Apparently, you guys have never dealt with replicating data, so have no concept of how long it takes. Pulling just a 20GB DB over the internet on a T1 (common business class speed of 1.5Mbit/sec) can take all day. Now, we are talking about terabytes of data. They JUST moved the POL database to a new server and it took @12 hours. That was in-house, on their own network. Worst case scenario, that was on a 10Mbit transfer rate if their network is 20 years out of date--which I assure you it is not. We are talking about upwards of 30 servers that would have to be moved. Even if they did a disk-to-disk back up of the servers and shipped that SAN overseas, they would need more than just a few hours of uptime for EACH SERVER to back them up. So, they might get 3 or 4 done in a day because of the rolling blackouts. So, no matter what... you would be looking at at least a week just to get a current backup of everything. Then, they have to get everything restored at the new site once that SAN is shipped over, then once they verify all is good, they have to change the DNS records--so you're talking another week plus the time to ship the drive array with the backups. Best case scenario, you're talking 2 1/2 weeks.

If SE were going to do this, there would be an exhaustive planning effort because they would not be doing this as a temporary fix. All the legal/business red tap and crap that goes along with it--re-locating talent and what not--would take some advanced planning as well.

Maybe once they are able to get back up and running with some sense of normalcy, they will look into a contingency plan. Maybe not. It's not like this is a common occurence for them. This is the first time I've seen anything remotely like it myself in like 6 years.

Raist

Raist,

I have a very good understanding of how data replication occurs as I myself work at a site that is a redundant data center for my company. Almost all big companies in the US run off of fiber connections not T1's. This increases the amount of bandwidth capabilities immensely. We have a 650MB Circuit that was installed. How long do you really think it is going to take to replicate TBs of data over a 650MB fiber connection. Even if SE is running their connections over T1's in Japan, think of how many bonded T1's they would need to service the game? That is a lot of bandwidth that could be utilized for replication purposes.

[Etrigan]

I for one am done. Flame me all you like... We as a player base have dealt with SE's inept approach to everything for years now. I'll be taking my talents to Rift until a suitable replacement hits the market. Yes I feel for the country of Japan in this dire time. I feel nothing but contempt for a multi-million dollar company that won't make previsions for its' player base.

(See You Again!)

[Etrigan]

Raist,

I have a very good understanding of how data replication occurs as I myself work at a site that is a redundant data center for my company. Almost all big companies in the US run off of fiber connections not T1's. This increases the amount of bandwidth capabilities immensely. We have a 650MB Circuit that was installed. How long do you really think it is going to take to replicate TBs of data over a 650MB fiber connection. Even if SE is running their connections over T1's in Japan, think of how many bonded T1's they would need to service the game? That is a lot of bandwidth that could be utilized for replication purposes.

Cem,

That may be true but there is still the matter of the rolling blackouts to be dealt with.