More servers = higher monthly fee
[No Thanks!]
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03-19-2011 05:11 AM #251(0)
03-19-2011 05:13 AM #252Cem started a "petition" of sorts to try to get some info from SE. Everyone needs to hop over there and /sign it. Maybe it will work.
http://forum.square-enix.com/ffxi/th...ll=1#post33153
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03-19-2011 05:19 AM #253To get more information? Come on, when they have something to tell us I'm sure they'll let us know. I'm pretty sure they have a lot of others things more pressing at the moment. So far SE has done a decent job keeping us informed. It's not like the status of a game server is really important... sigh sigh sigh.
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03-19-2011 05:22 AM #254There have been thousands of posts arguing over this issue. Cem's is a more formal request for a more detailed update--not likely to spark the flame wars going on in other threads. If everyone would just /sign it and keep it civil, perhaps it will get some results.
Raist(0){DISCLAIMER} Posts may contain opinions based on personal experiences that are not be meant to be taken as facts. What may appear as fact with no source reference may be recollection of information with no source, and may be subject to scrutiny without source reference. Any debate over validity of said facts without source references may be considered conjecture of all parties in that debate. Player comments may not be the expressed position/consent of SE, their affiliates, or any employees of said organizations. Please take these posts with a grain of salt if you are offended by the views of the player and understand that opinions are like assholes... everyone has one, not everyone wants to hear it.
03-19-2011 05:24 AM #255So, wait, does this mean that the Astral Candescence is lost to us? D:
Originally Posted by Camate
And, if this is an extra long maintenance, can we get a relic/mythic/empyrian weapon in our mog mail? ;D
Seriously, though, we hope that things get back to relative normal soon at SE, and my prayers are with the people of Japan.(0)
03-19-2011 05:32 AM #256It is easy to underestimate the costs of maintaining a redundent server farm and keeping even a reasonably up to date backup of a live realtime system. The cost of operating this internationally would be greater still. How much would players be willing to pay in additional fees to protect against an event that probably crops up once every 100 years or more? Would you continue to pay if the fees were doubled or there was no ongoing development due to all the fees being allocated to infrastructure?
Originally Posted by Silvermane
With complex systems physical access to the servers is essential, so despite Japan having a history of natural disasters this is ultimately the most productive and cost effective place to have the servers.
To reiterate, you just can't plan for an event as extreme as this.(0)
03-19-2011 05:33 AM #257Interesting tweet over at The Tokyo Post:
Today is the first day they will try to run with no scheduled blackouts - expect that supply exceeds demand
Everyone cross your fingers!
Raist(0){DISCLAIMER} Posts may contain opinions based on personal experiences that are not be meant to be taken as facts. What may appear as fact with no source reference may be recollection of information with no source, and may be subject to scrutiny without source reference. Any debate over validity of said facts without source references may be considered conjecture of all parties in that debate. Player comments may not be the expressed position/consent of SE, their affiliates, or any employees of said organizations. Please take these posts with a grain of salt if you are offended by the views of the player and understand that opinions are like assholes... everyone has one, not everyone wants to hear it.
03-19-2011 05:36 AM #258Sure, it would be a better way of going at getting more information, but if people are getting frustrated over this they simply need to have a bit of a reality check and understand there are more important things than playing FFXI- or getting status updates on when things will be back. I mean, the information is not even clear on when the rolling black outs will come to an end, as it changes day-by-day.
With that said, SE at the end of the day is a business. Once they can get the servers back up they most certainly will.(0)
03-19-2011 05:46 AM #259Ok you do realize that makes no sense right? We pay our fees now and that takes care of SE's cost and gives them a profit right? So how is it that adding a complete second operational system going to cost over 9 times as much as the first? I have internet here in the USA and they (SE) has internet in Japan, We don't actually run a hard line from here to Japan so I can play FFXI. It would be the same thing, 2 different servers configured the same way with the same internet connection = doubles the cost. OK not double compared to pricing difference in the two continents but no way is that going to equal 10 times the cost.For all those speculating about SE dropping the ball by not having a recovery plan in place I would like to add some clarification. The logistics of replicating data on a realtime system internationally are unbelievably complex. Even if the infrastructure of the country could support the traffic the financial cost of securing guarenteed international bandwidth and redundent routing would be financially prohibitive. The fees paid by FFXI subscribers would not even scratch the surface of these costs and that is why this sort of solution is only really available to high level financial infrastructure. Even if FFXI subscribers paid 10 times as much as they do now this solution would be out of reach
Sorry have to disagree with you here too, Many many companies the size of SE do have backup systems running in different areas of the world for precisely that reason. SE being an international company with servers already in many countries could and should have done this as well. Terrorist right now could nuke silicon Vally and All the big dot.comsEven for the biggest companies spending 100s of millions of dollars on their disaster recovery plans would be brought down by a national infrastructure outage. Some disasters are just to widespread to be able to manage effectively. This situation is out of SEs hands and will not be resolved until there is consistant power supply both to the servers and the infrastructure connecting them to the internet.
would be back up in a couple hours.
No disagreement here, the time is passed. They should have been prepared for this long before this happened. Now to try and fix it would take longer then just waiting for things to run there natural course. Just like the concept of insurance, after your in an accident is not the time to shop for it.For those hoping that the data may be moved to a secondary server house in another country I would say it is unlikely. Although there are 24 worlds each of these is made up of many physical servers precisely configured together to form a game environment. I would not be surprised if they were running over 200 physical servers in total (amount really varies depending on the specification of the hardware). Setting up a mirror of this environment is a job that takes weeks at best, even if you can source the hardware quickly. Deploying the software, configuring it and testing the result takes even longer. Migrating the data across on top of this and you have a process that takes a long time. Even if SE did choose to do this they would be facing more downtime when things returned to normal as they would want to move the operation back again, easy physical access is essential when you have so much hardware to maintain.
^ Very trueThe japanese people have a lot of serious issues to deal with right now but rest assured one of the top priorities will be getting power distribution back to normal as it is directly damaging the economy. In the meantime we should reflect on how easy the world can be spun into chaos and appreaciate how lucky and priviledged our lives usually are.
AmenWishing the Japanese populous a speedy and dignified recovery.
I don't mind the servers being down, please don't get me wrong. I am also not an uncaring and understanding about what Japan is going threw now, I just cant stand people making excuses for a company that didn't do what they were supposed to to begin with so now they are making there loyal customers pay for there mistakes. All it would take would have been to set up 2 servers and during normal maint take about an hour to sync the backup server up. This would be about roughly twice the cost but if they doubled fees they would pay for it with double profits as well. Even then It still wouldn't cost double cause they could always sell of the bandwidth for the second server till it is needed. This would have keep the servers up in this case and just about every case other then complete Armageddon. All they would have to do is in that couple hours that they gave us warning that the servers were going down is transfer the new data since the last maint and we would have been up after 2 hours instead of 2 weeks or 2 months as it still may turn out to be. If by some miracle some naturale disaster pretty much wiped out two continents then we would be here.
Bottom line they got caught with there pants down and didn't have insurance.
Again I could care less about the servers being down and since were are at this place now they did the right thing and shut them down so the power could be used elsewhere where it is needed a lot more. Im just saying that we shouldn't be here if they had done the right thing to begin with.(0)
03-19-2011 06:08 AM #260For Mattis....
I can't go into details here as it would take pages but the cost impact is massive. Your single stream of network data is fine to route across the internet from your DSL connection, but we are talking 10,000s of simultaneous users data that must arrive in a set order for it to form a stateful position in time. You will definately need something more stable and you will need redundency as you would be surprised how often large loops are down and automatic rerouting picks up the slack.
Your belief that this capability is widespread is flawed, many companies have transaction shipping offsite but not in realtime situations as the flood of data is a never ending torrent. Without mentioning names a very large national bank has twin server houses less than 100 miles apart but on seperate power grids and this is considered sufficient protection.
Like I said the details are tedious, this is what I do and it is not as straightforward as you make out.(0)
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