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Final Fantasy XI Discussion Board	Discussion Boards -> General
News Item: POL: Server Maintenance Aug 8

From: Cuer
Administrator
Posted: 2005-08-03 00:41:21

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PlayOnline: PlayOnline Scheduled Maintenance (Aug. 8)

From: PlayOnline
Aug. 2, 2005 20:19 [PDT]

PlayOnline Scheduled Maintenance (Aug. 8)

At the following time, we will be performing PlayOnline server maintenance. During this period, PlayOnline, Tetra Master and FINAL FANTASY XI will be unavailable.

The "Friend List Plus" feature, as well as the "Q&A" feature accessible from the official PlayOnline homepage (http://www.playonline.com/) will be unavailable as well.

You may also experience delays when sending mail through the "PlayOnline Mail" system.

[Affected Period]
From Aug. 8, 2005 from 8:00 to Aug. 9, 2005 18:00 (PDT)

*Maintenance completion time may be subject to change.

[Important Update Details]
Server machine upgrades

[Affected Services]
PlayOnline

Official PlayOnline Announcement

From: Vindalesin Guest Posted: 2005-08-03 01:13:00	Reply Quote
{All right!} Maybe they're doing something to help protect from the DDoS attacks.

From: Cuer Administrator Posted: 2005-08-03 04:19:29	Reply Quote
Just a note: The duration listed in the official English news item is incorrect, as can be seen in the auto-translated Japanese announcement. The duration is for 18 hours, not 36. Still rather long, but not nearly as bad. It looks like they're moving and upgrading the servers again... hopefully this will deal with the sporadic POL errors that people have had lately trying to log in.

From: guest
Guest
Posted: 2005-08-03 10:20:36

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it appears that they have fixed the time on playonline.

From:PlayOnline
Aug. 2, 2005 20:20 [PDT]

PlayOnline Scheduled Maintenance (Aug. 8)

At the following time, we will be performing PlayOnline server maintenance. During this period, PlayOnline, Tetra Master and FINAL FANTASY XI will be unavailable.

The "Friend List Plus" feature, as well as the "Q&A" feature accessible from the official PlayOnline homepage (http://www.playonline.com/) will be unavailable as well.

You may also experience delays when sending mail through the "PlayOnline Mail" system.

[Affected Period]
From Aug. 8, 2005 from 8:00 to Aug. 9, 2005 2:00 (PDT)

*Maintenance completion time may be subject to change.

[Important Update Details]
Server machine upgrades

[Affected Services]
PlayOnline

From: Wolv
Guest
Posted: 2005-08-05 01:31:39

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Yes,

"Subject to Change" means that you will wait 18 hours, they will extend the time another 3 - 4, and then, you will experience the worst frustration ever as you try to log in periodically for the next 12-24 hours. I understand the server busy messages.... but why in heaven's name do they allow you to get 87% through the INSTALLATION process before cuttiong you off and dropping you...? I am keeping my fingers crossed.

From: Cuer Administrator Posted: 2005-08-06 17:03:13	Reply Quote
For this maintenance, unless they specify further, there will not be any updates to the actual FFXI server or the client. They're upgrading/moving the machines that the game servers run on.

From: Dora-from-pandy
Registered User
Posted: 2005-08-08 12:45:07

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Considering if there are only five hundred thousand different user accounts accross the 30 servers and each user averages only 2 mules that means this game brings in monthly income of 7.5 million not including new game sales or sales of expansions etc. Any other business model than MMO's would think of shutting down servers for 18 hours with clients paying 7.5 million a month. These servers undoubtedly have backup data, do real time copy of that to an extra set of servers (doesn't have to be all 30) then do a 2 hour shut down and restart onto the new servers at a new location. They've done staggered maintenance before I can't think of why they are doing it this way this time.

From: Frank
Guest
Posted: 2005-08-08 13:47:06

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I have upgraded server in the past as well. I never had to take all the servers down at the same time for migration. I've also been part of moving data centers from one location to another in that case we did it over a long holiday weekend but as a system was ready it went back up also we didn't move all the data center on the same weekend. This is poor planing.

Since I think they have 30 servers why not take one down move it, bring it back up and then go to the next. It wouldn't take a 18 hours per server 2 hr each tops. Who the hell is the progrm manager. Keep your users happy.

This is crazy did Everquest have this problem?

From: Falconfire Guest Posted: 2005-08-08 14:19:50	Reply Quote
Yes Everquest and even WoW have this issue, it deals with how the games run, there is no way you could back up the server farms the size SE and other companies have running. They use more computer power to run these games than most fortune 500 companies.

From: Cuer
Administrator
Posted: 2005-08-08 14:21:42

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Quote from: Dora-from-pandy
Any other business model than MMO's would think of shutting down servers for 18 hours with clients paying 7.5 million a month.

This is the crux of the matter. All major MMOG act this way; the industry at large puts low priorities on having their services up all the time. These games are up and played constantly by default, but there aren't the exhaustive plans made for reducing downtime to a minimum, like there are in most other businesses. FFXI is unfortunately par for the course, in this regard.

Given how slowly the basic technical aspects of MMOG are advancing, it seems unlikely that this will change in the near future.

From: Guest Guest Posted: 2005-08-08 17:29:23	Reply Quote
Hmmmmm. Hopefully this update will make ppl stop getting d/c at random times ^^.

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News Item: POL: Server Maintenance Aug 8