I can understand patch updates, but what else are the devs doing?

  • Cras
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    41 year ago

    The other big one that usually requires downtime is network. You may not be touching your game servers all that often but if you need to do a major OS upgrade on a load balancer or switch, that’s going to mean everything behind it loses connectivity - and unless you’re talking one of the big hitters like WoW, they’re probably not funding redundant dual network paths to allow you to take it down without downtime

    • @Synthead
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      21 year ago

      If you are running metal, and the health of your entire network relies on a single load balancer or a single network switch, you’re far from being production-ready from a redundancy and scaling perspective.

      • Cras
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        11 year ago

        I don’t disagree, but at the same time running a whole setup that is fully ready for hot swap live failover whenever you have maintenance tasks to do is potentially just not desirable when you have the option of just taking the environment down instead - after all, gamers are pretty much conditioned to expect it at this point

        • @Synthead
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          1 year ago

          running a whole setup that is fully ready for hot swap live failover whenever you have maintenance tasks to do

          This is basically “ready for production 101.” It’s even easier to run an entire service on a computer under a desk, but this isn’t how you run stuff in production.

          Even if it’s “easier” in the short term, you’ll be paying more for not being production-ready in the long term (and get a reputation for not having good uptime).

          • Cras
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            11 year ago

            Yeah I feel you’re widely overestimating the setup that’s in place for smaller online games companies. We’re not talking about Activision or some high-frequency fixed income trading firm here. “Give me something that people can play on that costs as close to nothing as possible” is usually the main driver