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Blizzard Offers Look Inside WoW At GDC

Posted by ScuttleMonkey on from the belly-of-the-beast dept.

Yesterday morning at GDC Austin, Blizzard's J. Allen Brack and Frank Pearce took to the stage to finally give a peek inside the inner workings of World of Warcraft. Tipping the scales at around 4,600 people utilizing 20,000 computer systems and 1.3 petabytes of storage, Blizzard has created a raging behemoth. The Online Network services group alone has "data centers from Texas to Seoul, and monitor over 13,250 server blades, 75,000 cpu cores, and 112.5 terabytes of blade RAM. [Pearce] points out the picture of the GNOC (Global Network Operations Center) in their slideshow, a data core that even has televisions tuned to the weather stations. They use those to ensure that conditions of the data center are up to their standards; with only a staff of 68 people they ensure connectivity across the globe for the numerous WoW servers."

5 of 188 comments (clear)

  1. Story at 11... by CRiMSON · · Score: 5, Funny

    Massive online game requires massive ammount of servers, bandwidth and people to maintain.....

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    oogly boogly!
    1. Re:Story at 11... by OakDragon · · Score: 5, Funny

      You wouldn't be surprised at the number of people who DO try to run application servers underneath their own desk in the corporate world.

      All you need is a post-it note saying "do not turn off!! SERVER!!!!"

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      Dark Reflection
  2. All I read... by lazorz · · Score: 5, Funny

    Additional instances cannot be launched.

  3. Re:Well, Look at Their Monthly Revenue by The+Clockwork+Troll · · Score: 5, Funny

    With currency exchange rates fluctuating so frequently, Blizzard has to allow for the possibility that in Russia, World of Warcraft subscribes to you.

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    There are no karma whores, only moderation johns
  4. Re:Should I Be Concerned... by drexlor · · Score: 5, Insightful

    I was alarmed when I was searching for a new bank that the major banks do not offer authenticators or usb dongles to use for online banking for normal consumers. Why can I protect my WoW account better than my bank account?