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EVE Online: Big Honking Computer Cluster

StraddenStradden Managing EditorMember CommonPosts: 6,696
in News & Features Discussion

CCP, the company behind the popular Sci-Fi MMORPG, EVE Online, has announced that they have the "largest supercomputer cluster in the history of the gaming industry". For details, read below:

 


EVE ONLINE® LAUNCHES LARGEST SUPERCOMPUTER IN THE GAMING INDUSTRY RUNNING ON IBM SERVER TECHNOLOGY

Austin Game Conference - September 8, 2006 - CCP Games announced today the largest supercomputer cluster in the history of the gaming industry for EVE Online, one of the leading science fiction Massively Multiplayer Online Games (MMOG). The upgraded server cluster features dual-processor 64-bit AMD Opteron-based IBM BladeCenter LS20 blade servers, as well additional enhancements to the clusters internet backbone.

"The sharp growth rate of EVE Online was pushing the limits of the technology we replaced," said Hilmar Veigar Pétursson, CEO of CCP Games. "Our goal was to implement a scalable solution that could accommodate the influx of new subscribers and gracefully manage the steadily increasing demand put on our infrastructure. IBM provided us with optimized hardware that improved overall game performance and increased capacity, especially during peak server usage timeframes."

The EVE Online supercomputer cluster manages over 150 million database transactions per day on a 64-bit hardware architecture from IBM. The database servers don't use traditional hard drives but instead Solid State Disks (SSD) which are recognize as the worlds fastest storage devices with over 400,000 random I/Os per second. The recent world record of over 30,000 concurrent users on a single shard is a testament to the clusters capabilities and CCP is looking forward to support at least 50,000 concurrent users.

"CCP has really innovated traditional MMOG design," said David Laux, IBM Global Executive, Games & Interactive Entertainment. "IBM is proud to provide the powerful technology that will bring new excitement to the EVE community and help CCP continue to be successful."

For more on EVE Online click here.

Cheers,
Jon Wood
Managing Editor
MMORPG.com

Comments

  • Vertex1980Vertex1980 Member Posts: 951
    Looks like they are going in the right direction.

    image
  • FarakonFarakon Member Posts: 47

    Hopefully now they can un-nerf bookmark copying and / or think of a better solution.





  • ZenoLocZenoLoc Member UncommonPosts: 71

    Unlike many MMORPGs it's nice to see that CCP tends to be proactive as opposed to reactive to customer growth.  While most games have lag in areas CCP is to be commended for seemingly always at least attempting to stay ahead of the curve.


  • MrPopovMrPopov Member Posts: 217

    "The EVE Online supercomputer cluster manages over 150 million database transactions per day..."

    All that from what some people would have you believe to be "80% afkers"

    Congrats CCP and keep up the good work!

  • HolyAvengerOneHolyAvengerOne Member UncommonPosts: 708
    Impressive.

  • GorukhaGorukha Member Posts: 1,441
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.

    It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
    image

  • TheAnomalyTheAnomaly Member Posts: 42

    Originally posted by Gorukha
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.

  • kuza55kuza55 Member Posts: 12

    Originally posted by Gorukha
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.
    Umm, you do realise that graphics have absolutely nothing with servers being able to handle more users don't you?

    And the the only thing that a different envirnoment (empty space as you call it) changes in server conditions is simply less need for collision detection, other than that the requirements are approximately (I'm not going to say anything on the rest, because I haven't played WoW,and so don't know how much it has to deal with, probably not too much compared to EVE though) the same on the servers.

    If anyone cares to have a look at their old cluster architechture there's a pic availiable in their PyCon presentation: http://us.pycon.org/common/talkdata/PyCon2006/12/Stackless Python in EVE2.ppt
  • busdriverbusdriver Member Posts: 859

    Originally posted by Gorukha
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.
    WoW kiddie alert! Hurry, go back to WoW or you might lose a rank

    CCP is doing a great job.
  • ElnatorElnator Member Posts: 6,077

    Originally posted by Gorukha
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.
    Way to show you know absolutely zip about hardware infrastructure and gaming topologies.  :)  Graphics have nothing to do with the servers.  Sheez.

    Currently Playing: Dungeons and Dragons Online.
    Sig image Pending
    Still in: A couple Betas

  • JRoarkJRoark Member Posts: 6

    Originally posted by Gorukha
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.
    Crappy graphics?  3 year old graphics, yes, but I woulnd't call them crappy. Plus, they are updating them to take advantage of newer technologies.

    On the bookmarks, there was a recent dev post stating they are looking for ways to fix it so they no longer cause such a high load on the server and can still be copied.
  • GorukhaGorukha Member Posts: 1,441

      Don't play WoW but nice try lol. Just a hater of crappy games like EvE. Just cause you can cram thousands of players into a server doesnt make that game good, or the event news worthy.  Have fun with your crappy game where majority of the population is botting and macroing lol.

    PS I was talking bout graphics and LAG, not how much a server can handle. Oh and EVE graphics are pure garbage, boxes in space as someone described it is a good evaluation. 



    It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
    image

  • LumsterLumster Member Posts: 230

    Eve here , Eve there I am getting so sick of the BS. The hype and fanboytism is getting really old by now, so many EVE threads that I am close to pu***.


    Great for the devs, now all they need is a GOOD game that could use such a server ::::22::

  • apple1017apple1017 Member Posts: 14
    EVE is too hard to a newplayer

    i m a happy apple

  • RadmuzRadmuz Member Posts: 85
    While I have found EVE to be a entertaining game it does seem that this site is basically full of fanbois for EVE. Look at how high the game is always rated here, then look at how the number of people subscribing to it compares to many other games. If it *really* was as good as this sites rating claims do you think that maybe more people would be playing it?

    EVE is not a bad game, slow at times, but not a bad game. But some honesty here at MMORPG would be nice.


  • jamsjams Member Posts: 2


    Originally posted by Gorukha
      Amazing, the crappy EVE hype machine keeps goin.  This is news now ? Crappy graphics in an empty environment = reduced lag well DUH.  I'm sure if WoW put their characters into space you could have a million people on a single server cluster lol.
    30.000 players * x factory slots each working non-stop * x labs working non-stop * dozens of auctions each * auctions that work across the entire galaxy...

    Yeah quite a comparison to a game that had problems linking 3 sale locations togheter (and with only 2k players online on top).

    Not only you know shit, but you're dumb too.  The enviroment in a mmorpg is not what requires resources, it's the transactions behind the scenes (sales, item transfers, productions, etc).  I can bet that in EVE those things are not few times larger than any other mmorpg, but rather few magnitudes larger (thats 10 compared to 10.000 for you).  The EVE infrastructure IS state of the art and their technical acomplishments are something to be admired - that's a fact regardless of wheter you like or dislike the game.
  • jamsjams Member Posts: 2

    Originally posted by Radmuz
    While I have found EVE to be a entertaining game it does seem that this site is basically full of fanbois for EVE. Look at how high the game is always rated here, then look at how the number of people subscribing to it compares to many other games. If it *really* was as good as this sites rating claims do you think that maybe more people would be playing it?

    EVE is not a bad game, slow at times, but not a bad game. But some honesty here at MMORPG would be nice.



    EVE is a very specific, very complex, very hardcore mmorpg, not your general, crowd drawing franchise.  Despite this, it has managed to score more than 100.000 subscribers and still grow after years, which is quite an acomplishment in the mmorpg world.  Dont look at the WoW 6 mil phenomenon and rain down on anything with less subscribers. 

    Dont forget that not so long ago (and even now), 100.000+ PAYING players was huge... Reference [mmogchart]
  • busdriverbusdriver Member Posts: 859

    Originally posted by Gorukha
    Have fun with your crappy game where majority of the population is botting and macroing lol.





    This just proves you never even played EVE.

    And so once again is proven that EVEs steep learning curve is not made for idiots
  • GorukhaGorukha Member Posts: 1,441
     Everyone I know that plays it basically plays for pvp and macros the rest, which is a big chunk of the game LOL

    It's better be hated for who you are, than loved for who you aren't.
    image

  • SpinnerkeSpinnerke Member CommonPosts: 3
    Originally posted by apple1017
    EVE is too hard to a newplayer
    Apple, I agree with you upto some point, the amount of information at the start is overwhelming.
    And it helps alot to know some folks in the game that help you through it.
    But it can be done :)

    I started in eve's beta, we didn't have a tutorial, in fact we wrote the tutorial ourselves to help the others.
    From my hand just little step by step guides to get somewhere :-)
    Others wrote stuff about a different field that helped me.

    But now there is this sexy voice called 'Aura', I believe, she helps you getting the basics, while after that, there are 30.000 players to help you to the rest :)

    Come in game and look up a character 'Qinoly', convo me and I'll drag you through EvE.

    See you in game :)

    Spinner


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