03-30-2005, 11:18 PM
savaughn,Mar 30 2005, 06:56 PM Wrote:AOL's virtually exclusively read based cacheable systems are trivial compared to what is done in an MMO. If you find someone who's solved the performance issues inherent in steady state databases (where business logic variables are required to be DB posted before completing) please let me know. Most DB environments are like raid 5. Easy to read from, easy to cripple on fast simultaneous writes.
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This... isn't very accurate (although in some respects it used to be), and unfortunately I'm not allowed to go into too much detail as to why it's inaccurate. Memory caching with periodic writes whenever something changes which must be stored in case something else tries to read it is doable, and being done, at much higher transaction rates than 600,000/(however many realms there are now) users can generate. You have to gauge your level of acceptable loss; if the server crashes and I've killed 8 standard mobs since the last write for my character, well... waaah, I'm thinking.
In fact, we've seen part of the problem already in Blizzard's explanations: they're running more than one server per DB host, when there's absolutely no interaction between Stormrage and Alleria or whatever. If one DB host can't handle the load 23 servers are throwing at it... then why were 23 servers pointed at one DB host? That's just crappy architecture, period.
Darian Redwin - just some dude now