A month-to-month social occasion on Wolf Territories Grid. (Picture courtesy Wolf Territories Grid.)
In a transfer that guarantees a sooner, smoother, and extra responsive digital world expertise, Wolf Territories Grid has migrated to a brand new server cluster at a knowledge middle in Frankfurt, Germany.
The improve is anticipated to considerably improve efficiency and reliability for the grid’s hundreds of customers, who can now get pleasure from lightning-fast teleports, faster rezzing of objects, and an general 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 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 previous cluster that we constructed up through the years,” he informed Hypergrid Enterprise. “Plus that knowledge middle had all our servers break up over totally different networks. What this successfully meant was that the site visitors between the servers must route across the knowledge middle. Plus, there was no excessive availability.”
The brand new server cluster boasts a powerful 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 lease 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 way more wizzy!,” he mentioned. The enhancements transcend simply lowered lag, with teleports now being almost instantaneous and objects rezzing at a a lot sooner 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 will take a while to carry up the area identify. 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 simple and with out the assistance of Busty and Daja we positively 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 previous cluster was one thing we sort of constructed as we realized.”
The grid additionally now has its personal community within the knowledge middle, he added.
“Every thing is quicker as a result of we’re not having to route our knowledge spherical the info middle,” he mentioned. “There are noticeable velocity variations, particularly in heavier areas. This implies the entire grid is approach sooner 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 previous one, he mentioned, though the grid has incurred a big one-time price this month attributable to operating each clusters concurrently through the switch course of.
Clevett mentioned he’s open to serving to different grids with related tasks — even when they is perhaps thought-about opponents. He’s assisted different grids with technical points previously, he mentioned, together with offering server assets throughout emergencies and even serving to revive grids that have been getting ready to closure.
“I simply suppose we’re higher working collectively on this unbelievable OpenSim undertaking,” Clevett mentioned.
All the Wolf Territories Grid group, together with the pleasant AI robotic “Bobby,” is happy to welcome customers to the improved digital area, which is now higher geared up to deal with the grid’s aim of reaching 100,000 areas and 100,000 registered customers, he added.
In line 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 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 commonplace areas.
Right here at Hypergrid Enterprise, I take advantage of “commonplace area equivalents” as a measure of land dimension, as a substitute of named areas, as a result of OpenSim permits for areas of assorted sizes. So, for instance, in OpenSim, you may 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 attitude 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 approach, begin your individual weblog.
I’m severe, please begin your individual weblog! We don’t have sufficient publications protecting OpenSim! I’d like to assist in any approach I can, and can run free advertisements for you, and introduce you to all of the grid homeowners.
Again to Wolf Territories.
The grid provides 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.
Prices start at US $25 a month for a four-by-four area — the equal of 16 commonplace 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 energetic customers and 28,512 commonplace area equivalents. OSgrid, the earlier chief, reviews 5,280 energetic customers and 27,985 commonplace area equivalents.
So Wolf Territories is now within the lead by each metrics.
