The Cost of Running SL

[Inquisitor]

I agree with the bandwidth being a potential problem. I know Time Warner was "experimenting" with badwidth caps in some cities not long ago. But that was for home users if I remember correctly. For what I'm paying for a business class account, there had better be no caps on usage! And I've been assured that there aren't any limits on my bandwidth.

But we'll see when things get rolling. If they ever do!

[Mac_Fife]

Yeah, I'm generalizing on typical "domestic" accounts wrt bandwidth caps. It all depends on what you're paying (and I'm not asking you to tell us all ) - I'm just making the point that so called "unlimited" accounts are very rarely genuinely unlimited, because bandwidth has a cost.

When Google, Microsoft, Yahoo!, Amazon, et al have their new datacentres for "cloud computing" up and running then I expect the cost of renting machines will drop quite sharply. These new "container" style datacentres can pack in around ten times as many servers per sq.m than the conventional layout allows. Doing some rough calculations on the size of Google's two buildings in Oregon (~6500 sq.m each), then they should get 100 containers in each; one Verari Systems container gives you 1400 servers, so you're talking about a quarter million servers on that one site. Microsoft and Yahoo! both have new facilities very close to each other that seem to be of a similar size. Amazon aren't saying much about their new facility in Oregon, but it's got a 10MW electric substation, so that might be another 100,000 servers.

[Nalates]

Another interesting tidbit of SL trivia I came across.

The asset servers of SL are now rumored to hold approximately 100 terabytes of data...

Allowing user created content in game has a ...down side...

In SL practically everything is an asset. If MOOS players were allowed to create in game, storage could quickly become a problem.

SL charges US$0.04 to upload an image, animation, mesh, etc. for use in game. That is a trivial amount. I know it is enough that I use the beta grid to test uploads before actually making the 'live' upload. I wonder if it is enough to pay for all those hard drives?

[rarified]

Storage costs are negligible, IMHO. My last addition to my server was 2x1.5Tb Seagate SATA drives @us$119.00/ea.

Assuming a mirrored configuration (or raided) that's still approx us$80/Tb (and not counting backing store for backups).

_R

[Nalates]

Agreed, the cost of storage is minimal. Serving up terabytes is not. I doubt we will have that problem with MOOS. The point is what users do with fan created content when it is easy to add.

[Mac_Fife]

Yes, but it's not going to be that easy to add. It's not like building something in SL which "exists" right away. It'll be up to the shard operator(s) to decide what they add and when they add it, so they can remain in control of their cost base.

[admin]

The topic has been split to "Building A Pipeline" because that's a very important topic and not really about "The Cost of Running SL."

Please continue on the course of this SL discussion, and contribute to "Building A Pipeline" here:
viewtopic.php?f=12&t=142

[admin]

This topic has been split yet again to "Improve Uru Cost/Performance Using UDP Network Architecture" on the Suggestions forum:
viewtopic.php?f=15&t=147

And of course, please feel free to continue on the course of this SL discussion.

[Nalates]

Another piece of triva... Comparing OpenSim with Second Life

Open Sim is compared to Second Life and some of the costs and performance limits are mentioned. Costs are at the end of the article and quoted below.

The writer makes several points about user features not being updated on Second Life. Which to a point is true. My understanding is that LL is upgrading the foundation architecture and improving efficiency. In several cases they are correcting decisions made when the system was initially conceived that are not scaling well. Plus new tech has been devised for texture downloads and is claimed to be one of most efficient in the MMO virtual worlds. ...I can't say as I see that as SL seems to be slowing since it was put online. But a 10% performance improvement might be buried in a 15% user increase.

Our Benchmark is a grid with 2 Quad servers and 10mps unmetered bandwidth. Which is about $600/month. We can run 6-8 regions on this and have inventory services. We can also store an unlimited number of archived regions and turn them on/off. Windows 2008 server will allow for greater than 4 Gig ram so we expect this to be more like 10 regions on a server at a time. 8 active regions in SL is about $2,400. Total costs for OpenSim would also need to include server maintenance and support which is about 3-5 manhours/week or so. If you are running your own website this is the same type of process.