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Looking Inside the Second Life Data Centers

Posted by ryuzaki0 on from the lookit-all-them-wires-in-there dept.

An anonymous reader writes "InformationWeek looks inside the data centers that power the game Second Life. Tidbits from the article: The software architecture is an extension of the virtual world metaphor of Second Life. At any time, it's possible to walk into one of Second Life's two data centers, pat one of the rack-mounted servers, and say that particular server is running virtual New York, or San Francisco, or ancient Rome, and imagine itty-bitty people and buildings inside the 1U rack-mounted servers. Linden Lab, which develops and maintains Second Life, runs 2,000 Intel- and AMD-based servers in two co-location facilities in San Francisco and Dallas. And, contrary to widespread belief among Second Life users, Linden Lab has not decided whether to open-source the Second Life server software."

8 of 103 comments (clear)

  1. Game? by Simon+Garlick · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Second Life isn't a game, it's an advertising medium. Nothing more.

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    1. Re:Game? by hal9000(jr) · · Score: 2, Insightful

      SecondLife is what you make it. If you don't get invloved with the other characters, then yeah, there isn't a whole lot to do other than shop for stuff and have virtual sex.

      But I have also spent lots of time "playing". Engaging in combat, playing hide and seek, chases, role playing, and just plain goofing around.

    2. Re:Game? by Professor_UNIX · · Score: 3, Insightful

      I can't think of any other advertisement medium where viewers pay to see advertising.
      You can't? Cable/Satellite television? Satellite radio? Sporting events (all those billboards you paid to go look at). Advertising is everywhere and you often pay to see it.
  2. Residual self image by mushadv · · Score: 3, Insightful

    At any time, it's possible to walk into one of Second Life's two data centers, pat one of the rack-mounted servers, and say that particular server is running virtual New York, or San Francisco, or ancient Rome, and imagine itty-bitty people and buildings inside the 1U rack-mounted servers.

    "No...I don't believe it...let me out! I want out!"

  3. Pictures by allscan · · Score: 3, Insightful

    Why do all of these "inside the data center of ..." never have pictures? Everyone knows geeks needs something to drool over and fantasize with.

  4. Wheres the server pr0n? by rmadmin · · Score: 4, Insightful

    Am I the only one that reads these titles that say "A peak inside X's datacenter" and go "OMG Datacenter pics!!!!!!"? Only to be disappointed by a text article with no pics? I DEMAND MY SERVER PR0N!

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    Can all fish swim?
  5. Re:That's just good old capitalism for you pal! by osu-neko · · Score: 2, Insightful

    Virtual land is not infinite, unless you really think Linden Labs has developed computers with infinite processor power and hard drives and are just hiding the fact from us. Not to mention infinite bandwidth and infinitely fast network switches, without which having the first couple of things wouldn't help.

    And there's no Linden Policy against releasing land. The main problem right now is, they're releasing it as fast as they possibly can and are still developing a longer and longer backlog of orders for more. Demand has outstripped their ability to produce it, not to mention their ability to host it all on their existing network (although they've done a lot in the last couple of months to help improve that).

    Saying LL has infinite land to give is like saying any real world real-estate agent has infinite land to sell. Sure, there's a finite amount of land on Earth, but there's like umpteen zillion planets in the galaxy with land no one has claimed yet. Surely, given that, land prices on Earth are way too high, right?

    That logic doesn't work in the virtual world any more than in the real one. In both cases, there may theoretically be near infinite land, but in fact they're far far less available today than people would ideally like.

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    "Convictions are more dangerous enemies of truth than lies."
  6. Re:That's just good old capitalism for you pal! by hackingbear · · Score: 2, Insightful

    I think one huge difference between real-world land and SL land is that in the real-world, you can't just teleport from place to another for free. You have to spend a lot of time and money moving around. That alone place more meaningful value differences on lands. That's why lands in metropolitan area cost much more than lands in a rural area in New Mexico, even though the toral amount of land in this country is finite. You can't eat lunch in New Mexico and return to work in San Francisco. Now imaging what the land price of San Francisco would be if people can teleport in no time and money in the physical world. If there is any significant value of "land" in SL now, it is the limited server resource but hardware and network bandwidth are still depreciated by half or more every 2 year due to Moore's Law. And it would deminish more if they run multiple sims in one CPU/core. Therefore, the hardware cost is not a good measurement of sim value. I believe the right way is to do away teleporting and implement virtual fee-bearing commute system. So area with more people and businesses naturally worth more, just like they do in the real world.