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 setting.
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 Techniques 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“We had a hodge-podge of servers from Ryzen 5’s to Ryzen 9’s within the outdated cluster that we constructed up through the years,” he informed Hypergrid Enterprise. “Plus that knowledge heart had all our servers cut 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, not less than 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 subsequent degree,” Clevett mentioned.
Customers have already observed the distinction, with feedback like, “It’s rather more wizzy!,” he mentioned. The enhancements transcend simply decreased lag, with teleports now being practically instantaneous and objects rezzing at a a lot quicker price, he added.
The grid’s massive map, which beforehand took a while to load regardless of fast-loading tiles, has additionally seen a big 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 will take a while to deliver up the area title. That’s fully fastened by this improve.”
The migration course of, whereas complicated, was made potential by means of the efforts of the Wolf Territories Grid group, together with grid directors DJ Illusions and Luna Stormfeather, in addition to the tech group comprised of Clevett himself, Busty, and Daja.
“From a technical perspective, it was not straightforward 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 discovered.”
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 info heart,” he mentioned. “There are noticeable velocity variations, particularly in heavier areas. This implies the entire grid is means quicker and prepared for the longer term.”
Regardless of all of the enhancements, the price of working 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 as a result of working each clusters concurrently throughout the switch course of.
Clevett mentioned he’s open to serving to different grids with comparable tasks — even when they may be thought of rivals. He’s assisted different grids with technical points prior to now, 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 unbelievable OpenSim venture,” Clevett mentioned.
The whole Wolf Territories Grid group, together with the pleasant AI robotic “Bobby,” is worked up to welcome customers to the improved digital area, which is now higher geared up to deal with the grid’s purpose of reaching 100,000 areas and 100,000 registered customers, he added.
Based on Hypergrid Enterprise knowledge, Wolf Territories Grid, based in 2021, surpassed OSgrid in land space in November of final yr, changing into the most important grid by land space. It has held that spot ever since.
Wolf Territories has additionally been rising quickly in energetic consumer numbers as nicely. On this month’s stats report, it was solely 5 energetic customers behind OSgrid, the most well-liked grid in OpenSim.
The grid had 5,271 energetic customers in March, and the equal of 28,496 normal areas.
Right here at Hypergrid Enterprise, I take advantage of “normal area equivalents” as a measure of land dimension, as an alternative 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 it will likely 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 means, 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 means I can, and can run free advertisements for you, and introduce you to all of the grid house owners.
Again to Wolf Territories.
The grid affords 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 normal Second Life areas — with as much as 20,000 prims complete. 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 newest stats. As of this writing, the grid studies 5,361 energetic customers and 28,512 normal area equivalents. OSgrid, the earlier chief, studies 5,280 energetic customers and 27,985 normal area equivalents.
So Wolf Territories is now within the lead by each metrics.
