Maintenance Tuesday. Why?

[MikeyC]

Why do "the servers" need to go down at all? I'm curious. Please elaborate, anyone who can. Thx.

[Lofty]

I would like to know too, in the meantime ... http://www.totalbf2142.com/forums/showthread.php?t=22997

[rIkIO]

They are probably running more than just one server to process all the stats. To prevent any bugs from happening, they will synchronize all of the servers once a week. Thats why I think the maintenance day is happening.

[Jaco^]

It couldn't come quick enough this week considering my stats still haven't updated since the beginning of the weekend!

[Micster]

Explains why my stats updated today. :)

[Vreki]

If one was cynical, one might suspect that the have so bad memory leaks that the have to be rebooted once a week, or they will crash.

[IHateYou]

All computers need to be restarted occasionally. A server runs thousands of processes over and over again, and sometimes they get hung up or caught in a loop. Instead of going through every single process to see if it's still running correctly, they just restart all of them by rebooting. Every server in the world (Not just video games) goes through a maintenance schedule that usually involves rebooting.

[Sir. kaheiyeh]

It's kinda like asking, "Why do people need to sleep every night?". It's cause the computers need their little "break" as well. (Yes I know some people don't sleep.)

[Vreki]

All computers need to be restarted occasionally. A server runs thousands of processes over and over again, and sometimes they get hung up or caught in a loop. Instead of going through every single process to see if it's still running correctly, they just restart all of them by rebooting. Every server in the world (Not just video games) goes through a maintenance schedule that usually involves rebooting.

Thats not entirely correct.
While the individual servers might need some downtime, the system should not.
Try selling a customer a global system which needs be closed 3 hours a week (and 3 hours extra for "emergency")

It is definitely possible to make a system that runs almost 24/7/365, you just have to be willing to pay for redundancy.

So why does everything need to be shut down?

Maintenance of loginservers? Let a backupserver handle the logins meanwhile
Database maintenance? Queue the updates and let a backup server run a "frozen" copy


I have difficulties understanding what it is that should make these server so complex, it seems to me that it is a very basic login and database functionality that they provide?

[venny]

i agree, the recent gamespy outage shows how little redunduncy the stats system currently has

[Widkidone]

Its not like they fix anything anyways.

[Vikaman]

Its not like they fix anything anyways.

They do. People dont seem to realise how much though.

[Vreki]

They do. People dont seem to realise how much though.

Well, enlighten us then :D

These are not the actual gameservers that are maintained like in WOW.
This is just login and stats DB, why must the be taken offline every week?

It is not because the downtime has any measurable impact on my gaming, but when EA insists that we must use the loginserver to play, the least they can do is to run it as a 24/7 server. It is not exactly rocket science.

[Mr_Zaz]

Thats not entirely correct.
While the individual servers might need some downtime, the system should not.
Try selling a customer a global system which needs be closed 3 hours a week (and 3 hours extra for "emergency")

It is definitely possible to make a system that runs almost 24/7/365, you just have to be willing to pay for redundancy.

So why does everything need to be shut down?

Maintenance of loginservers? Let a backupserver handle the logins meanwhile
Database maintenance? Queue the updates and let a backup server run a "frozen" copy


I have difficulties understanding what it is that should make these server so complex, it seems to me that it is a very basic login and database functionality that they provide?

Exactly, when was the last time your flight couldn't land because the ATC computers were down for maintenance?

[jake___]

Why do "the servers" need to go down at all? I'm curious. Please elaborate, anyone who can. Thx.

BECAUSE.

:laugh:

[The_Eliminator]

Why does it have to be a Tuesday??

So many unanswered questions :rolleyes:

[dOwnsizer]

Why does it have to be a Tuesday??

So many unanswered questions :rolleyes:
cause it's my day off!!!

[SonicPixel]

Because it can't be Thursday, Friday, Saturday or Sunday because those are all "prime time" play days with the largest number of players. That leaves Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday. Tuesday seems to make sense.

It used to be cool to play on Tuesdays because you might get awarded some badges or ribbons you thought you already had (wink-wink, nudge-nudge).

=)

[Vikaman]

Well, enlighten us then :D

These are not the actual gameservers that are maintained like in WOW.
This is just login and stats DB, why must the be taken offline every week?

It is not because the downtime has any measurable impact on my gaming, but when EA insists that we must use the loginserver to play, the least they can do is to run it as a 24/7 server. It is not exactly rocket science.

Currently there are 4 Thai servers running 8 game servers for BF2 and BF2142, and they crash every 5 minutes. Why? They have NEVER been maintained or shut down, there servers are a walking distance to my house (around a kilometer) and yet, my ping can turn out to be 50-60 on a 3MBPS connection.

The servers goes through HEAVY server load, 3000 people want to play on 8 game servers that run 64 player maps (7 of them, one is 32 i think). And the 2142 servers crash every 3 mins or so. Giving us no gaming time. (Hence I am on Argh...'s Squadplay server a lot now).

These Thai servers have never been turned off, upgraded for handling more poeple, or maintained. They literally run 24/7, for no reason.
In the case of EA, they cant maintain the servers during USA night time, cos Eastern people cant log in and vice versa. They do do a good job on maintaining these servers giving all of us the game time we probably need. Is one tuesday a week really gonna make you cry? If so, god help us.

IMHO, though we might hate EA, maintainance of a server is very important. Its one of these things that helps us, and we in a way must respect what they are trying to do.

I dont know if I made any sense rite now cos its 8AM in the morning ........ all drowsy.

[Vreki]

I dont know if I made any sense rite now cos its 8AM in the morning ........ all drowsy.
You make sense, but you are also missing a very important point:
Gameservers are just a node in a huge network. If they fail the rest of the network is unaffected.
Loginservers are mandatory for all users. If they are down, nobody can play.

That is why uptime for the gameservers is mostly irrelevant, while it is very important for the loginservers.

That the Thai servers seem to be run by rather incompetent people is another matter.


In the case of EA, they cant maintain the servers during USA night time, cos Eastern people cant log in and vice versa. They do do a good job on maintaining these servers giving all of us the game time we probably need. Is one tuesday a week really gonna make you cry? If so, god help us.

As stated earlier, I am personally unaffected by the downtime.
That doesn't really change that the server has a role where they should be run as 24/7 servers with redundancy.

You have told us that the Thai servers run like crap, but you haven't told us what specific maintenance they, and more important the login servers, require that will have them shut down 3 hours each week?

I doubt that they need to be patched that often, and a reboot is not a 3 hour event.

[Vikaman]

No idea what they do, but they do it well.

I am guessing, dusting? Data transfers for that week, incase the system completely fails, they will have a back up. etc.

[Vreki]

No idea what they do, but they do it well.


Actually I seem to recall a few instances of login and/or stats server failure?


I am guessing, dusting? Data transfers for that week, incase the system completely fails, they will have a back up. etc.

:D

I am sure that they have a reason for taking it down, but it shouldn't be necessary.
Real Computer Systems (TM) manage to do all this and stay up around the clock.
The maintenance window should be something like 2-3 hours a month