A month-to-month social occasion on Wolf Territories Grid. (Picture courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.)
In a transfer that guarantees a quicker, smoother, and extra responsive digital world expertise, Wolf Territories Grid has migrated to a brand new server cluster at a knowledge heart in Frankfurt, Germany.
The improve is anticipated to considerably improve efficiency and reliability for the grid’s 1000’s of customers, who can now take pleasure in lightning-fast teleports, faster rezzing of objects, and an total extra responsive surroundings.
The switchover incurred minimal downtime for the grid — simply 14 minutes.
Paul Clevett, often known as Lone Wolf in-world, is the director of Wolf Software program Methods Ltd., the corporate that owns the grid. It was hosted on the Myloc Information Centre in Dusseldorf for the previous three years.
“We had a hodge-podge of servers from Ryzen 5’s to Ryzen 9’s within the outdated cluster that we constructed up over time,” he advised Hypergrid Enterprise. “Plus that knowledge heart had all our servers break up over completely different networks. What this successfully meant was that the visitors between the servers must route across the knowledge heart. Plus, there was no excessive availability.”
The brand new server cluster boasts a formidable array of {hardware}, together with AMD Ryzen 9 processors with 32 cores, a minimum of 128GB RAM, and 2TB Server Grade NVMEs in RAID one configuration. There was no value enhance for individuals who hire land on the grid.
“We have been a just about lag free grid earlier than, however this takes us to the following degree,” Clevett mentioned.
Customers have already seen the distinction, with feedback like, “It’s far more wizzy!,” he mentioned. The enhancements transcend simply lowered lag, with teleports now being almost instantaneous and objects rezzing at a a lot quicker fee, he added.
The grid’s giant map, which beforehand took a while to load regardless of fast-loading tiles, has additionally seen a major enchancment.
“As a result of we now have an enormous map it used to take some time to load it in,” Clevett mentioned. “You’d click on on a area and it could take a while to carry up the area identify. That’s utterly fastened by this improve.”
The migration course of, whereas complicated, was made potential via the efforts of the Wolf Territories Grid crew, together with grid directors DJ Illusions and Luna Stormfeather, in addition to the tech crew comprised of Clevett himself, Busty, and Daja.
“From a technical perspective, it was not simple and with out the assistance of Busty and Daja we undoubtedly wouldn’t be the place we’re,” mentioned Clevett. “The important thing actually was ensuring the cluster design was proper and that it met our wants. What we had in our outdated cluster was one thing we sort of constructed as we realized.”
The grid additionally now has its personal community within the knowledge heart, he added.
“All the pieces is quicker as a result of we’re not having to route our knowledge spherical the information heart,” he mentioned. “There are noticeable velocity variations, particularly in heavier areas. This implies the entire grid is manner quicker and prepared for the long run.”
Regardless of all of the enhancements, the price of operating the brand new cluster is about the identical because the outdated one, he mentioned, though the grid has incurred a big one-time value this month resulting from operating each clusters concurrently in the course of the switch course of.
Clevett mentioned he’s open to serving to different grids with related initiatives — even when they is perhaps thought-about opponents. He’s assisted different grids with technical points previously, he mentioned, together with offering server sources throughout emergencies and even serving to revive grids that have been on the point of closure.
“I simply suppose we’re higher working collectively on this unimaginable OpenSim venture,” Clevett mentioned.
All the Wolf Territories Grid crew, together with the pleasant AI robotic “Bobby,” is happy to welcome customers to the improved digital area, which is now higher outfitted to deal with the grid’s objective of reaching 100,000 areas and 100,000 registered customers, he added.
In keeping with Hypergrid Enterprise knowledge, Wolf Territories Grid, based in 2021, surpassed OSgrid in land space in November of final yr, turning into the most important grid by land space. It has held that spot ever since.
Wolf Territories has additionally been rising quickly in lively person numbers as nicely. On this month’s stats report, it was solely 5 lively customers behind OSgrid, the preferred grid in OpenSim.
The grid had 5,271 lively customers in March, and the equal of 28,496 customary areas.
Right here at Hypergrid Enterprise, I exploit “customary area equivalents” as a measure of land measurement, as a substitute of named areas, as a result of OpenSim permits for areas of varied sizes. So, for instance, in OpenSim, you’ll be able to have 4 Second Life-sized areas, every with, say, 15,000 prims — or a single two-by-two area with, say, 60,000 prims. From the angle of a customer to that grid, the two-by-two setup will look the identical as 4 particular person areas, besides that border crossings could be simpler — and will probably be labeled as a single area on the map. But additionally, I’m the boss right here. If you wish to measure land in another manner, begin your individual weblog.
I’m severe, please begin your individual weblog! We don’t have sufficient publications overlaying OpenSim! I’d like to assist in any manner I can, and can run free adverts for you, and introduce you to all of the grid homeowners.
Again to Wolf Territories.
The grid presents areas in four-by-four, eight-by-eight, and 12-by-12 configurations, with a most capability of as much as 1.2 million prims.
“We might go loopy and see how a 32-by-32 performs however that’s for testing,” mentioned Clevett.
Costs begin at US $25 a month for a four-by-four area — the equal of 16 customary Second Life areas — with as much as 20,000 prims whole. The costs go as much as $76 a month for the 1.2 million prim configuration, and there are reductions for bulk orders.
I simply went and checked the most recent stats. As of this writing, the grid reviews 5,361 lively customers and 28,512 customary area equivalents. OSgrid, the earlier chief, reviews 5,280 lively customers and 27,985 customary area equivalents.
So Wolf Territories is now within the lead by each metrics.
