Scaling

[ack_hh]

Will the following help?

 

- table time-out: if no card is played and no bid is made at a table for, let's say,

30 minutes, close the table and log out the players and the kibitzers.

 

- client time-out: display a "Are you still there?" dialog box after

30 minutes of inactivity. If the user does not reply within xx seconds,

log out from BBO. Any mouse click, chat, changing rooms, etc. will

restart the time-out counter.

 

The time-out value might be variable, depending on the number

of visitors logged in to BBO (higher load - shorter time-out).

 

Separating the vugraph seems to be a good idea.

[uday]

What I don't understand is why no one seems to like the idea of many independent BBOs.

 

 

Wouldnt you like to have your choice of branded bridge servers? Maybe the "Rated" server could offer ratings. The "NiceGuy" server could offer immediate bans for a single rude remark. The "No-secrets" server could insist on people using real names/identities.

The "Dollars" server could be restricted to people who have at some point purchased bbo$. The "Network" server could be restricted to people who are invited in by existing members. etc.

 

Maybe the private/public clubs could be replaced by private/public servers.

 

Maybe one or two of them could be run by NBOs for their members.

 

Maybe one or two of them could be pay servers, run by people who think they can do a better job of it than we can (no jokes needed, thanks).

 

 

 

Why don't any of you actively want more customized servers and more choices (laying aside the issues of how to achieve any of this) ?

[bestguru]

My main objection to independent servers is finding friends and new people to play with. For example, I have a partner that I play with on occasion only because she is pleasant to play with. She has no interest in improving her game and is not a BIL member. If I were kibbing a game in the BIL and private clubs were completely seperate from the main bridge room then we wouldn't know we were both on.

 

Another objection is that it is difficult enough to find a weak nt player in a pool of 5000+ players. It would be much harder with, say, 10 indepent servers averaging 500+.

 

I would have much less objection if we had the ability to see across servers. This would pretty much be the same as today's clubs. I'm not sure how much this would help load balancing. Almost everybody just plays in the main bridge club. Maybe some advertising or incentives would help, but as ochinko said, "The end user is lazy"

[cherdano]

What I don't understand is why no one seems to like the idea of many independent BBOs.

 

 

Wouldnt you like to have your choice of branded bridge servers? Maybe the "Rated" server could offer ratings. The "NiceGuy" server could offer immediate bans for a single rude remark. The "No-secrets" server could insist on people using real names/identities.

The "Dollars" server could be restricted to people who have at some point purchased bbo$. The "Network" server could be restricted to people who are invited in by existing members. etc.

 

Maybe the private/public clubs could be replaced by private/public servers.

 

Maybe one or two of them could be run by NBOs for their members.

 

Maybe one or two of them could be pay servers, run by people who think they can do a better job of it than we can (no jokes needed, thanks).

 

 

 

Why don't any of you actively want more customized servers and more choices (laying aside the issues of how to achieve any of this) ?

Uday, I don't mind a split at all, as long as all the players I like to kibitz, plus all my friends that I like to play with, will be on the same server as me :rolleyes: Which of course, cannot happen. (Any of your proposed splits would have my friends divided more or less equally among all servers.)

 

A go server that I visit more or less regularly tried the following: they have a room system. They tried to split the "English Room" (default room for many, depending on language setting) into an "English Game Room", where chat is only allowed if it's on-topic w.r.t go, and an "English Chat Room", where all chat is allowed. This led to endless flamewars, admin (=yellows) abusal etc. etc. for at least half a year. Further, the split hasn't worked at all, since everybody is staying in the bigger of the two rooms.

 

Of course, that was a somewhat different situation, but still I am convinced that if you try to impose a split on a built community, you should be prepared to take some flames. What you can try, instead, is to offer places where smaller communites can form themselves, i.e. rooms.

[luis]

What I don't understand is why no one seems to like the idea of many independent BBOs.

 

 

Wouldnt you like to have your choice of branded bridge servers? Maybe the "Rated" server could offer ratings. The "NiceGuy" server could offer immediate bans for a single rude remark. The "No-secrets" server could insist on people using real names/identities.

The "Dollars" server could be restricted to people who have at some point purchased bbo$. The "Network" server could be restricted to people who are invited in by existing members. etc.

 

Maybe the private/public clubs could be replaced by private/public servers.

 

Maybe one or two of them could be run by NBOs for their members.

 

Maybe one or two of them could be pay servers, run by people who think they can do a better job of it than we can (no jokes needed, thanks).

 

 

 

Why don't any of you actively want more customized servers and more choices (laying aside the issues of how to achieve any of this) ?

With all my respect I think that would be a really horrible horrible idea.

The software should allow you to distribute the load between multiple servers in a way transparent to the user. If that implies a cost that you can't afford then it can even be better to start a collect to raise the needed money than to split BBO, splitting BBO will ruin the fun of having a centralized place where you can play, chat, learn and watch bridge. You can distribute the communications between the client an different servers depending on what you are doing, you can have a "lobby" server, a "tables" you can even have multiple "table" servers if needed each server hosting some tables and you can have a "vugraph" server for vugraph. The only thing you need is to handle messages from a user in one server to a user in another server but you can easily share a table of user-server locations so you know where to send the messages.... Just some ideas I have no idea about the code.

[sceptic]

I am not sure if I am on the right track, but I spent a lot of time in Yahoo before I found bridgebase, one thing I liked and still do like as an option is the choice given with social lounge, beginners lounge, intermediate lounge and advanced lounge.

 

Whilst they have the same issue as here, people in advanced that dont belong there, it is easy enough to find friends in any of these lounges and as for losing friends, I have friends from yahoo I still play with and I do not play in yahoo anymore well for 18 months probably, yahoo messanger and msn etc keeps you current with friends.

 

the extra value added items in BBO are a bonus not available anywhere else (well if they are they do not seem to be as good)so may be all areas would be segregatd, I have no idea whether seperate servers is an issue as I am no comp buff, BUT,

 

I do not think anyone should fear the split if that is the way forward, I actually do think it will be a benifit, I am just not sure some people like change anyway :rolleyes:

 

I do not belive you will lose the community spirit

[david_c]

Uday, I don't mind a split at all, as long as all the players I like to kibitz, plus all my friends that I like to play with, will be on the same server as me :)

Exactly.

 

I wouldn't mind if BBO was split by function, so that the main bridge club was separate from tournaments, etc., as long as it would still be possible to see who was in the other areas, and chat to them. It's not necessary to know what everyone else on BBO is doing, though it would be nice if you could find out about individual people (and individual requests like this would not be too hard on the system).

[TimG]

Uday, I don't mind a split at all, as long as all the players I like to kibitz, plus all my friends that I like to play with, will be on the same server as me :)

Exactly.

[Chamaco]

I posted my idea here:

 

http://forums.bridgebase.com/index.php?sho...=15entry59903

 

Basically, I'd much prefer to keep the Main Lobby in a single BBO, and move everything else on separate servers.

[pdmunro]

I would be happy with these mini-BBO's:

• BBO-main: friends + list of mini-BBO's + ...
   
  
• BBO-social: kitchen/party bridge
   
  
• BBO-clubs: BIL + Total Points + WP Refugees + ...
   
  
• BBO-1: half the online players
   
  
• BBO-2: the other half of the online players
   
  
• BBO-T: teams + tournaments (including Vugraph)
   
  
• BBO-$: services for which you pay
  

The main function I want is the ability to switch between the different mini-BBO's to find a table to kibitz. I don't want to be blocked from entering a mini-BBO because it is "full".

 

Obviously the BBO-# idea is scaleable. With 20000 members you could have 7 mini-BBO's each with about 3000 players. Ah, to dream ... :-)

[Brandal]

What I don't understand is why no one seems to like the idea of many independent BBOs.

 

 

Why don't any of you actively want more customized servers and more choices (laying aside the issues of how to achieve any of this) ?

My best guess is "we" are very happy on BBO

and "afraid" a major change will be for the "worse"

 

:P

[pbleighton]

I like Chamaco's idea the best - keep one Main Lobby, and put the rest on separate servers.

 

I agree with others that seeing all of the users is a waste of resources. You could display friends and stars, and have a Search mechanism for others.

 

Peter

[scoob]

i'm sorry if this was already brought up, i did scan this topic but didn't scrutinize every post.

 

why not have the server selection automated when you login to balance the load. regardless of which server you are on you can see all people and tables and if you are on bbo1 and join a table on bbo2 you are simply switched - this would slow down table loading slightly, but i don't imagine it should be enough to cause problems.

 

to the end user there would be little to no difference than there is right now. when i move to bbo2 to play the next person to login would be sent to bbo1 to balance the load, etc.

 

even with this scheme, i still think a special server for vugraph is a good idea.

 

$0.02

[inquiry]

i'm sorry if this was already brought up, i did scan this topic but didn't scrutinize every post.

 

why not have the server selection automated when you login to balance the load. regardless of which server you are on you can see all people and tables and if you are on bbo1 and join a table on bbo2 you are simply switched - this would slow down table loading slightly, but i don't imagine it should be enough to cause problems.

 

to the end user there would be little to no difference than there is right now. when i move to bbo2 to play the next person to login would be sent to bbo1 to balance the load, etc.

 

even with this scheme, i still think a special server for vugraph is a good idea.

 

$0.02

I don't think this helps. If I understand the problem, it is the information (all the people logged on, all the tables, and the updating of that information) which is the problem. Everytime someone joins or leaves a table, that information has to be updated, etc. If you could do that across "two servers" in real time, there would not be an issue. Read or reread fred's post on how information needed quadruples with increasing load and see if this isn't exactly the problem.

 

Ben

[pdmunro]

I have thought a little more about my request that we not be excluded from a mini-BBO because it is full.

 

My request relates to the full-nightclub, empty-restaurant phenomenon.

 

Everyone wants to be in the full nightclub, " where the action is".

 

Whereas, no one wants to dine in an empty restaurant: "Is there something wrong with the food?"

 

When I played on Microsoft's "The Zone", there would be some "full" rooms of 100 tables which you couldn't enter. The other rooms would have only a few players in them, making it difficult to get a foursome together. (Of course, the "bots" would always play in the empty seats, making for some interesting bridge.)

 

So to come to my latest idea.

 

Could you have a concept like bacterial growth operating:

a mini-BBO fills and fills, then when it reaches a certain size it divides?

 

That way there would be no "full" mini-BBO's, and no empty ones either.

[Brandal]

there would be some "full" rooms of 100 tables which you couldn't enter. The other rooms would have only a few players in them, making it difficult to get a foursome together.

This is my concern about having mini-BBO's that all

have everything,and limited access.

 

There would always be mini-BBO's with few people somewhere

down the line.

[Deanrover]

Hate it.

 

Dean

[Gerben42]

What you would like is some sort of situation where the end user does not know about the split.

How can this be achieved?

 

First, make a reverse friend database.

 

Now you can split into, say, 4 equal parts. People's friends are visible as are the tables they are playing on, but nothing else from the other server. The only communication between the servers is across people's friends. I don't know but of 5000 people online I expect most friends list to be only 1 or 2% of all players, so keeping track of what they are doing should be okay. The information need not be 100% updated either, you can keep it on some hard drive that updates itself by scanning over all people on all servers updating every "add some time scale here (10 seconds? 1 minute?)".