zomg i carnt play game 4 four hours what are they thinkink anet gimme back my monay!!!
Heh. Just kidding. Wrote that so the idiots would not have to but I know they will anyway.
So people, I'm posting this as a notification to those who missed the network update news. Do not plan an important voyage/mission for the appointed time.
And thanks to ArenaNet for all the effort they are putting into the game. I hope they won't have a hard time with this maintenance.
Edit: Here's the link to the network news page : http://www.guildwars.com/aboutgw/net...ws/default.php
Planned Server Maintenance on March 30 : 08.00-12:00 GMT
Ishmaeel
koneko
http://www.guildwars.com/aboutgw/networknews/
This part caught my attention:
Properly done RAID 5 ftw? D;
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by guildwars.com
Guild Wars will be unavailable during scheduled maintenance on March 30th from 00:00 PST (08:00 GMT) and 04:00 PST (12:00 GMT).
Unfortunately the Guild Wars database servers experienced a hardware failure that prevents them from operating properly, and in order to restore functionality we need to replace several components. We apologize for any inconvenience this maintenance may cause, and hope to have Guild Wars running again in short order. For those folks with a technical bent, and for those who'd just like to know more about why we're taking such a long outage after almost a year with no scheduled maintenance, read on: Because Guild Wars is a global game, where players from anywhere in the world can play against other gamers from any other location on the globe, there's really no good time to schedule maintenance because there isn't an idle period; there are always players from some part of the world enjoying the game. We've therefore strived to minimize the number of scheduled maintenance periods, and we've been largely successful. While we have had several brief, unplanned outages in the nearly one year since the launch of Guild Wars, by and large we've been able to keep the game running continuously. We've had approximately twelve hours of downtime this year, ten hours of which was due to the unfortunate (but necessary) database rollback. Though the database rollback took quite a while to complete, the rollback only removed one hour of progress from character advancement, though we do realize that players lost their time, and for that we wholeheartedly apologize. This outage is intended to allow us to perform some critical maintenance on our database infrastructure. In order to ensure that Guild Wars is always available, we purchased quite a lot of redundant server hardware (also known as clusters). The clusters are designed so that, if one part fails, another part is capable of taking over the load. Instead of one computer for a given task, there are two computers, each with multiple network cards, power-supplies, drive interface controllers, disk arrays, and all sorts of other components. While this is expensive, it's really the only way to ensure that the network continues to operate 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. A simple analogy is that it's like having two lightbulbs (with two power supplies and two switches) to keep a room lit. If one bulb burns out, there's still time to change it before the room goes dark, unless the other bulb burns out at the same time, of course... In the past we've had several successful cluster failovers, but unfortunately this time not everything worked as desired. Basically, one disk controller went bad, and even after replacing the controller we can't get the silly thing to come back again. To ensure that we don't have a catastrophic failure, we're taking down everything on Thursday morning (Pacific Time) so that we can replace the broken components and bring everything back to fully functioning service. We've alloted four hours for the maintenance, and we certainly hope that it will take less time. We know that a lot of folks won't be able to play Guild Wars during that time period, but we hope that everyone will understand the necessity. We'll look forward to seeing you back in the game a little later in the day. |
Quote:
| each with multiple network cards, power-supplies, drive interface controllers, disk arrays |
Ishmaeel
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by koneko
There was an earlier thread that got deleted...
|
Savio
The earlier thread was deleted because there was so much misinformation being thrown around and the OP was rather vague. Claims that it'd be down the whole day, claims that it was just the support site... too many bad posts, not enough real information.
Sekkira
And of course my panicing due to not being able to play guild wars for a day. Not that this is much better either.
FOUR HOURS CHRIST! *rocks self in a corner*
FOUR HOURS CHRIST! *rocks self in a corner*
Feminist Terrorist
Reminds me of the Verizon commercials: You get the network. lol
Ogg
12 hours of downtime in a year. And 10 of those because of that rollback.
I'm very, very impressed.
12 hours, in a year.
Anyone working in any IT-related business would give out their firstborn to be able to achieve same kind of uptime for the whole network.
I'm very, very impressed.
12 hours, in a year.
Anyone working in any IT-related business would give out their firstborn to be able to achieve same kind of uptime for the whole network.
VGJustice
well, that's unsetling. I've worked in an environment where scheduled maintanence periods were a thing of legend, and I still remember how badly our technicians were over-worked. Um, I don't mind a little downtime from time-to-time, if it means higher play quality overall. I'll have to see exactly how improved the game is after this 4 hour period, but I'm rather unnerved about this lack of maintainence periods. =\
It's that whole nightmare all over again.
It's that whole nightmare all over again.
Huntmaster
WoW has what, 12 hours of downtime a day?
jimmy_logic
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by VGJustice
well, that's unsetling. I've worked in an environment where scheduled maintanence periods were a thing of legend, and I still remember how badly our technicians were over-worked. Um, I don't mind a little downtime from time-to-time, if it means higher play quality overall. I'll have to see exactly how improved the game is after this 4 hour period, but I'm rather unnerved about this lack of maintainence periods. =\
It's that whole nightmare all over again. |
Ogg
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by VGJustice
I'll have to see exactly how improved the game is after this 4 hour period, but I'm rather unnerved about this lack of maintainence periods. =\
It's that whole nightmare all over again. |
You dont need that many maintenance periods for the whole network, if you build it to be fault-tolerant, as A.net has done. One part fails, other, similar parts pick up the slack.
Redundancy ftw!
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Huntmaster
WoW has what, 12 hours of downtime a day?
|
Closest thing to GW-system is DDO, which is built around non-combat areas and heavily instanced, same as GW. They have weekly maintenance, though
Dead Phlox
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Huntmaster
WoW has what, 12 hours of downtime a day?
|
Havelock
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by koneko
Properly done RAID 5 ftw?
|
Big_Iron
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Havelock
You wouldn't want that for a database. In that case performance is everything. So RAID 1 FTW (for the redundancy in one box and to survive single disk failures) and distribute it among as many channels and disk arrays as you can...
|
RAID 0+1. Performance + redundancy. I know a little something about clusters having built and maintained a couple hundred of them. 
-Loki-
No convenient time to do it. So we'll just do it Australia prime time.
Havelock
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by WoodyDotNet
*Buzz!!* Guess again.
RAID 0+1. Performance + redundancy. I know a little something about clusters having built and maintained a couple hundred of them. |
RAID 0 doesn't give you any performance boost, as the number of disk writes/reads on a given number of disks and a given Bus System (be it SCSI, FC or whatever) is limited. And when running high volume databases (as the Guild Wars DB probably is) you'll want to get as many individual disks on as many different channels as possible.
RAID 0 does nothing to the number of read/writes your disks can serve, it just gives you a different view of the disks used.
Let's do some maths. Assuming one disk can handle 1000 reads / writes per second (just to have a number for simplicity). Putting a number of n of these in a RAID 0 would give you n*1000 reads / writes per second. Using n individual disks gives you the exact same n*1000 reads / writes per second.
If this were "I need to write a constant data-stream with high speed to some disks", RAID 0 would be a nice choice, but I've never seen an online database create that kind of load on a disk
Big_Iron
Yeah Havelock, we don't want to get off topic, but RAID 0+1 gives you added performance with redundancy. Since this is their DB and it's constantly being tapped, they'd need high performance in addition to redundancy. It's been pretty much the standard for DB clusters for a few years now. If I were to guess, I'd bet they're running an Oracle DB on Sun or HP high end servers connected to an EMC. But that's pure speculation on my part.
boxterduke
I will be sleeping during that time so I wont notice anything anyway and when I wake up I will be heading to work.
hehe
hehe
Havelock
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by WoodyDotNet
Yeah Havelock, we don't want to get off topic, but RAID 0+1 gives you added performance with redundancy.
|
I'll admit: with 4 disks forming a RAID 0+1 you get more performance (and more capacity) than with 2 disks forming a RAID 1 but what else could you expect?
Str0b0
Thank god someone finally linked the actual post about this. Now I can see why they are taking it offline instead of using their fail overs to run parallel units while they work on one. Oh well looks like I gotta get a life for four hours tomorrow. that kinda sucks. LoL
Big_Iron
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Havelock
It seems you really believe that. So be it. But as I stated above: to double the performance (even with RAID 0) you have to double the number of disks.
I'll admit: with 4 disks forming a RAID 0+1 you get more performance (and more capacity) than with 2 disks forming a RAID 1 but what else could you expect? |
http://blogs.sun.com/roller/page/andresblog/20050614
Also, when dealing with a DB like this one, you're probably talking dozens of disks (if not more) and terabytes of storage.
neoteo
we have 400 computers where i work , network goes down almost every week.
its a miricle 12 hours in one year
its a miricle 12 hours in one year
wolfe2dale
Thumbs up to Anet for picking the most unlikely time to impact the majority of gamers
08:00-12:00? Almost everyone I know who plays will be at work...Well done Anet!
08:00-12:00? Almost everyone I know who plays will be at work...Well done Anet!
Str0b0
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by neoteo
we have 400 computers where i work , network goes down almost every week.
its a miricle 12 hours in one year |
KvanCetre
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Huntmaster
WoW has what, 12 hours of downtime a day?
|
There is at least 8 hours of downtime EVERY SINGLE Tuesday.
On the day of a patch? Welcome to 24 hours.
Aside from the Tuesday Maintenance, you have to deal with the occasional downtimes that would popup here and there.
Worst Servers Ever.
And thats with 4 million people paying 15 bucks a month.
posmo
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by KvanCetre
Worst Servers Ever.
|
JiggyFly
The only reasonable explanation for Anet having so little downtime is that they have a team of uber 1337 haxorz working for them.
But 4 hours without Guild Wars....that's like...well 4 hours I won't be playing Guild Wars..Crap!
But 4 hours without Guild Wars....that's like...well 4 hours I won't be playing Guild Wars..Crap!
Karmaniac
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Ishmaeel
zomg i carnt play game 4 four hours what are they thinkink anet gimme back my monay!!!
|
MSecorsky
Four hours beginning at midnight the day before a holiday. Ah well, I'll be getting to bed early.
Naxohs Seralna
8-12 PEE EM
or
8-12 EY-EM
?
or
8-12 EY-EM
?
WasAGuest
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Sekkira
And of course my panicing due to not being able to play guild wars for a day. Not that this is much better either.
FOUR HOURS CHRIST! *rocks self in a corner* |
ravenwolf77
u know they just have a bunch of magic fairies typin on old style typewritrs &
no real computers right
the down time is just to feed the gerbils
no real computers right
the down time is just to feed the gerbils
Ishmaeel
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Naxohs Seralna
8-12 PEE EM
or 8-12 EY-EM ? |
Heh. Kidding again. The times I posted are GMT which means they are always expressed in 24h format. That would be [a few seconds pass while he calculates with his brows creased] 8-12AM for those in Greenwich but since you don't seem to live there, most probably you will need to calculate the time for yourself, considering your time zone.
Edit: Checked your profile. It is 10AM-2PM for you.
dargon
8-12 gmt = 12am-4am pacific time = 2am - 6am central time = 4am - 8am eastern time. IOW, Go to bed and don't worry about it!
Big_Iron
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dargon
8-12 gmt = 12am-4am pacific time = 2am - 6am central time = 4am - 8am eastern time. IOW, Go to bed and don't worry about it!
|
Ishmaeel
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by Karmaniac
Quote:
|
pigdestroyer
Four Hours what are they thinking!?!?!??!?!???????????
gimme ma money back
gimme ma money back
Omega X
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by pigdestroyer
Four Hours what are they thinking!?!?!??!?!???????????
|
Rayea
time to get out the incenc sticks, bowl of infinate RAM and prayer wheel of SATA :P
and sit the servers down, have a very serious talk to them about being good, working hard and not explodong memeory all over the place
oh..and maybe test them by running every ele femail to LA in her undies and standing in color coded groups for a 20 min dance for the a-net xmas party video *winks*
*imagines the groups of eles doing a Ascalon wave lol*
gota had it to them, though...considering how many peeps use the game, 24/7/365...its damn good going to have a small a size of maint as that....
*wonders if the WoW servers are run on Windows*
and sit the servers down, have a very serious talk to them about being good, working hard and not explodong memeory all over the place
oh..and maybe test them by running every ele femail to LA in her undies and standing in color coded groups for a 20 min dance for the a-net xmas party video *winks*
*imagines the groups of eles doing a Ascalon wave lol*
gota had it to them, though...considering how many peeps use the game, 24/7/365...its damn good going to have a small a size of maint as that....
*wonders if the WoW servers are run on Windows
*
nirhan shadowmauler
Quote:
|
Originally Posted by dargon
IOW, Go to bed and don't worry about it!
|