Trial Global Server Maintenance Schedule
By
Bardon,
Posted on: 2009-10-14 08:05 in News, Events and Announcement Discussion
Thanks for the confirmation GF. My joy is a little marred by the fact that tuesdays is my other playing night and yet again our play is cut in half with this latest patch but the fact that (hopefully) from now on we will have an uninterupted run on Friday nights will make it much easier to bare. 
And thanks again for listening to us. We know we are not the major portion of your customer base but it's nice to be considered just the same.
Yes thank You GF, while we are still the most affected the change in timing is a far better solution that what has been in place up to now.
So, one maintenance a week for everyone on Thursdays, already I'm liking it, no more Friday night disruptions to my gaming! As for the exact time they do it, that'll determine whether it 'works' for this Oceanic. Oh, BTW, I'm assuming Ghost Falcon knows that there are multiple timezones through Australia and another in New Zealand where I'm from. Here's hoping you find the 'point of least inconvenience' for every player!
Edit: And when it's daylight savings in Brisbane, but not in Queensland, and it's daylight savings in New Zealand but not Australia...what'll the times be then...huh...huh? 
I see that Ghost Falcon has done us the solid of outlining the times for us, looks good to me!
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Quote:
You *DO* want the Halloween Event, don't you? |
Originally Posted by ricktu
Thanks for the confirmation GF. My joy is a little marred by the fact that tuesdays is my other playing night and yet again our play is cut in half with this latest patch
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Quote:
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Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
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European time Zones GMT : 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM (beginning October 22, 2009) Europe/London 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM (beginning 22-Oct-2009) Europe/Paris / Berlin 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (beginning on 22-Oct-2009) |
Is it worth noting that as of 25-Oct-2009 the Europe/London time will actually be back to GMT? (Just to remind everyone that the clocks change.)
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Quote:
This is just fantastic |
Originally Posted by Ghost Falcon
We're reducing the number of weekly maintenances.
Recently, we shifted our hardware/network maintenance schedule from two separate North American and European server maintenance windows to two "Global" maintenance windows per week.
This will not affect players located in North America, and will have a greater impact on Oceanic and European players. |
I really hope the servers cope well enough for it to be standard.
I'm really happy that its being tried. Even if it ends up unsuccessful :|
Thanks again!
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I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
I'd like to say "yay" as well.
You can add me to the list of those happy we're down to one prime-time interruption per week.
Except this week, when we've had two nights in a row, Wed & Thurs. Surely the patch release could've included the weekly reboot/maintenance?
Quote:
I agree. I understand the need for maintenance and the need for updates. But shouldn't we do those two together whenever possible?|
Originally Posted by Bardon
You can add me to the list of those happy we're down to one prime-time interruption per week.
Except this week, when we've had two nights in a row, Wed & Thurs. Surely the patch release could've included the weekly reboot/maintenance? |
Couldn't we have done maintenance yesterday or the update today?
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Quote:
Can you install a patch and run a defrag at the same time on your desktop ?|
Originally Posted by Bionic_Flea
I agree. I understand the need for maintenance and the need for updates. But shouldn't we do those two together whenever possible?
Couldn't we have done maintenance yesterday or the update today? |
Maintenance is maintenance (defrag, swapping out components, tweaking settings, updating the OS) and cannot be done simultaeously with an update (changing the actual game server software).
A better question would be is a 4 hour downtime on a Thursday better on weeks with a patch than a second downtime.
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I also understand that these things cannot be done simultaneously. But while the "anticipated" downtime is 2 hours for whatever they do, they frequently finish it much faster. If they could fit them both in a two hour timeframe, they should do it.
And personally, I would prefer a one-time four hour downtime.
I get to play for a few minutes to an hour before work during scheduled maintenance. Once it goes down and I leave for work, it makes no difference to me if it's down for 8 minutes or 8 hours. But not everyone feels that way, I'm sure.
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Not important to the reasons NCsoft has, but yes of course I can run a patch and defrag at the same time. What OS can't? |
Originally Posted by Catwhoorg
Can you install a patch and run a defrag at the same time on your desktop ?
Maintenance is maintenance (defrag, swapping out components, tweaking settings, updating the OS) and cannot be done simultaeously with an update (changing the actual game server software). A better question would be is a 4 hour downtime on a Thursday better on weeks with a patch than a second downtime. |
More so a server based OS.
The rebooting and what not plays more havoc with the defrag, but I really doubt the regular maintenance is about defraging and is more about compacting the database and cleaning that.
I'd much prefer a four hour block when patches are needed than two nights.
I don't suffer from altitis, I enjoy every minute of it.
Thank you Devs & Community people for a great game.
So sad to be ending ):
I agree with tanstaafl, no OS should have an issue with patching software and defragging - to be honest, a server's filesystems shouldn't *need* defragging. Before anyone asks, I've been the lead tech in the quality control division of a large international corporation with over 30,000 internal users and far more than that external users running massive online 24/7 internet applications so yes I *am* familiar with what's possible. It appears that the concepts of 'clustered servers' or 'virtual servers' have skipped NCSoft's attention. As a trivial example, VMWare lets you shift a running application to a new VM on the fly without interruption, including apps in memory.
Regardless, now we're getting hit with a third night IN A ROW of maintenance. Of course, we Oceania clients get stuffed around again. At least it's for something beyond their control, not software that was released without proper testing....oh wait!
This is not what I pay my subscription for. Given the amount of extra maintenance they've had to do for this Halloween event, it's clear that this has not been sufficiently tested. I agree that the current issue on the live servers needs to be addressed, but the proper place to catch bugs is before they are deployed to the production environment!
This new maintenance routine has been worse this week than the old one. Thanks for showing us how much you care about Oceania, NCSoft!
The Global Maintenance (projected 2 hour) window will occur "one" day a week (every Thursday, beginning October 22, 2009), and those times break down to be:
Thursdays
North American time zones
Pacific: 4:00 AM - 6:00 AM (beginning October 22, 2009)
Mountain: 5:00 AM - 7:00 AM (beginning October 22, 2009)
Central: 6:00 AM - 8:00 AM (beginning October 22, 2009)
Eastern: 7:00 AM - 9:00 AM (beginning October 22, 2009)
---
European time Zones
GMT : 11:00 AM - 1:00 PM (beginning October 22, 2009)
Europe/London 12:00 PM - 2:00 PM (beginning 22-Oct-2009)
Europe/Paris / Berlin 1:00 PM - 3:00 PM (beginning on 22-Oct-2009)
---
Oceanic Time Zones
Australia/Sydney 10:00 PM - 12:00 AM (beginning on 22-Oct-2009)
New Zealand/Auckland 12:00 AM - 2:00 AM (at midnight of Oct 22...12:01 AM = Oct 23rd).
(My apologies for leaving any specific time zone or country out.)
Note: I used a web-based Time converter to determine all equivalent times..., so if there are any errors, I blame the Internet.
Please note that tomorrow, October 20th, we have a Publish of a build (1600.20090930.5T2) that is for the 2009 Halloween Event. We had conducted several tests over the past couple of weeks, and made some improvements based upon player feedback.