Blame the consumer for not liking caddies? CD caddies were annoying to use. It didn't help that you probably had one or two caddies at the most and 100s of CDs. You still had to handle the bare discs and they only went into the caddy when you were using it. If reliability and disc preservation were the concern, CDs and DVDs could have easily been contained in a shell similar to 3.5" floppy disks. In fact this is exactly how most magneto-optical drives are - both the 3.5" and 5.25" formats are enclosed in a protective shell. As are Sony's mini-discs. Of course this would add manufacturing costs and is of very little benefit to companies producing CDs and DVDs. In fact I'd argue that it benefits content producers for the media to be relatively fragile. Lack of longevity reduces how long a given disc can be used for rental or resale ensuring additional purchases down the road. For the record current magneto-optical drives are on par with the capacity in DVDs. Obviously they aren't very popular devices and due to cost and rarity don't offer a realistic alternative to current optical technology. The cheapness of optical media is the best defense against their fragile nature. If you care to preserve a particular disc or data, just make multiple copies.
A lot of people at level 70 make a few alternate characters or go back and spend time leveling alts they've had for awhile. As you get further into the raid progression there is less and less to do on a non-raid night.
No upfront cost versus buying your own hardware. No long term contract for leasing. Ability to scale up and down without needing to purchase/lease additional hardware. These are some reasons why it is appealing to startups.
Level 20-60 got a boost. In this case the parent said he was level 14 which is the same xp rate as before:
2.3 patch
"Experience: The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60."
Levels 1-10 have always been really quick so you can get an initial feel for a class. Compared to other MMOs overall leveling has been pretty quick in World of Warcraft.
Oops missed an edit - I wanted to say if Amazon messes up (see the s3 outage last weekend) there isn't anything you can do about it. Which is one reason why I feel more hesitant about using their more specialized services (such as simple db).
Yeah in my last job which wasn't a web business we went the virtual server attached to SAN route. It's great tech and works well for HA and expansion. The key difficulty is that there is a high cost of entry. Yes you could also go with having someone host this for you but at least with the vendors I've talked to there is always a long term contract associated.
You are right that on the technical side there isn't much that's very new about "cloud" computing. The key difference in these offerings is that with Amazon there is no contract, no minimum monthly and no upfront cost. You pay for what you turn on and how you use it (virtual server time, storage used, data transfer). For a startup where every investor dollar is important this is a huge benefit. We previously had a much more traditional managed hosting environment (hardware load balancer, web servers, oracle back end with RAC on SAN). In a sense you are attempting to predict your load and paying for capacity upfront. Even assuming we hit the full capacity (bandwidth usage, storage, cpu) of our previous setup for a month - at Amazon the cost is about one tenth. Also as you stated:
"When I need to add another ESX node to expand my CPU or memory availablility, I add another ESX node."
Of course - but you are limited to the hardware you own or lease. In the case of a "cloud" service, I can turn up extra application servers or database slaves based on load or in a simpler scenario just based on traffic patterns over the course of the day. I can then shut these extra servers off when load trails off or during my normal off peak hours. I only pay for the time the servers were active and have no hardware procurement costs or contractual lease obligations. Conversely if Amazon messes up
There are a number of ways these services can be used but certainly in mission critical applications at this point ESX + SAN is going to be more reliable. Although nothing says a mix can't be beneficial. It really depends on specific business needs.
You are confusing S3 with Amazon's SimpleDB service. I currently don't use SimpleDB. We use a SQL relational database cluster running on ec2 instances. We backup/recover off of S3. Going to another host is a matter of redoing the backup scripts (easy) and changing the asset server settings from pointing to S3 to wherever the data is now being stored.
I'm thinking on any number of tools built around ec2 to support this behavior. Some are commercial offerings (like rightscale.com or scalr.net). You can however roll your own methods to do this if you like. Basically you can use open source monitoring tools to check for whatever states you need to look for (server down, cpu load too heavy etc.) and trigger actions based on that (bring up another server). There is nothing really magical that the pay services are doing. It's just a cost question, roll your own tools or pay for what is out there.
I highly doubt a majority of businesses are going to lock themselves into one hosting provider's specific development platform just to take advantage of hosted servers that push themselves into the next layer."
This depends on the service. Amazon's ec2 is basically just Xen virtual servers provisioned on the fly. s3 is a little weird but there are plenty of tools available to use it in whatever your application is running on. Code changes to support it are not all that difficult.
The cost analysis was really what did it versus our managed hosting plan (1/10th the cost per month). Auto scaling and healing of the application cluster was also a benefit. To scale with a traditional host meant getting locked into a contract for the added server(s).
One thing about ec2 is that it forces you to use best practices for disaster recovery. Instances don't commonly just "disappear" but you need to plan for it. Well tuned ec2 images can have your site up and restored from backup automatically within minutes.
ec2 / s3 is far from perfect and certainly won't meet everyone's needs. The downtime s3 has seen (like last weekend) would be devastating to some businesses. Of course even with a traditional host you may have downtime due to truck crash or other random act.
The problem with BC world PVP is that there isn't much of a reward for doing it. The item rewards are pretty useless. You will out level them before you get them. Since there isn't really a compelling reason to control the world pvp areas, people rarely bother. I'm sure if they opened up a level 70 PVP area in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley and rewarded badges of justice that would see some activity.
And then you hit Hellfire Peninsula and spend three or more long, painful levels staring a the Mars like terrain getting squished by random fel reavers. Then you leave and are happy never to return to it.
This wasn't a case of someone just doing it against management wishes. If you look at the time frame Intel was struggling because the Pentium 4M (mobile) chips were not power efficient. They were hot and sucked down battery life. As a result Pentium 3 mobile chips were still being sold in laptops that were designed for mobility versus the desktop replacements (P4M). Initially the Pentium 3 Mobile Tulatin core was released in speeds up to 1.4GHz. From Tulatin the Pentium M was developed by the Israeli group which then lead to the Core and Core 2. Intel was aware that it needed a mobile replacement for the Pentium 4 and this drove development of the Pentium M and Core processors. The Core2 processors were the first to be used as Intel's primary desktop CPU as well as mobile CPU. At this point the Core2 outperformed the Pentium 4 and didn't suffer from the P4's problems with power and heat generation. It isn't as though the Core2 just popped out of nowhere. The CPU was part of Intel's evolutionary plans for a mobile CPU going back to the P3 mobile.
"Establishing a society more friendly to US interests in the middle of the Mideast, while expensive in every measure, provides a needed (and potentially infectious) stress relief in the region."
Oh so we are reducing stress in the region? Gee, I hadn't noticed that. Also keep in mind that for an example the majority of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia - a country friendly to US interests. Propping up a US friendly government does not instantly make you popular with the people of the country. I suggest looking into the history of Iran as a good example.
Apple's marketing dept is smart enough to realize that in 2008 a television commercial is not a comprehensive marketing plan. Other companies would KILL for the kind of press Apple gets when it announces products. Did you need to see a commercial to know that the iPhone was coming out? Did anyone?
The Core is probably the greatest modern example of a truly horrible film. There are so many bad, stupid and ridiculous plot elements it is almost impossible to list them all. Let's not discuss the acting. Or even the special effects (how does one depict something that travels through solid rock). I loved it.
$15 is two lunches at mediocre restaurants (including anything not on the discount menu at a fast food place) where I live. So sure if I ate two lunches a month for $15 I wouldn't think much of it. At the end of the year I might say "those McDonalds lunches weren't worth $180". The amount of money over time seems like a lot but you probably blow $15 a month on trivial items anyway. The classic example is a date for two to the movies with popcorn and a soda (over $25 in my town). I'm not saying that WoW was worth YOUR $15 a month to you. That's of course your judgement. For many the entertainment they get is worth the nominal expenditure. Concerning the Sims, yes it doesn't require a monthly payment. It doesn't have an ongoing monthly cost to the developers either. There are no servers to run, bandwidth to pay for etc. Once the release is gold the ongoing costs are minimal and the Sims team is off and running on making an expansion or sequel. MMOs are more service than product. And yes Guild Wars did the "free mmo" thing but they also released 3 full price expansions in a short time frame. The game architecture is also less complex due to it's hub and instance structure.
Slashdot Mirror
Blame the consumer for not liking caddies? CD caddies were annoying to use. It didn't help that you probably had one or two caddies at the most and 100s of CDs. You still had to handle the bare discs and they only went into the caddy when you were using it.
If reliability and disc preservation were the concern, CDs and DVDs could have easily been contained in a shell similar to 3.5" floppy disks. In fact this is exactly how most magneto-optical drives are - both the 3.5" and 5.25" formats are enclosed in a protective shell. As are Sony's mini-discs. Of course this would add manufacturing costs and is of very little benefit to companies producing CDs and DVDs. In fact I'd argue that it benefits content producers for the media to be relatively fragile. Lack of longevity reduces how long a given disc can be used for rental or resale ensuring additional purchases down the road.
For the record current magneto-optical drives are on par with the capacity in DVDs. Obviously they aren't very popular devices and due to cost and rarity don't offer a realistic alternative to current optical technology. The cheapness of optical media is the best defense against their fragile nature. If you care to preserve a particular disc or data, just make multiple copies.
A lot of people at level 70 make a few alternate characters or go back and spend time leveling alts they've had for awhile. As you get further into the raid progression there is less and less to do on a non-raid night.
No upfront cost versus buying your own hardware. No long term contract for leasing. Ability to scale up and down without needing to purchase/lease additional hardware.
These are some reasons why it is appealing to startups.
Mine learned to throw poop. All the time.
Level 20-60 got a boost. In this case the parent said he was level 14 which is the same xp rate as before:
2.3 patch
"Experience: The amount of experience needed to gain a level has been decreased between levels 20 and 60. In addition, the amount of experience granted by quests has been increased between levels 30 and 60."
Levels 1-10 have always been really quick so you can get an initial feel for a class. Compared to other MMOs overall leveling has been pretty quick in World of Warcraft.
Oops missed an edit - I wanted to say if Amazon messes up (see the s3 outage last weekend) there isn't anything you can do about it. Which is one reason why I feel more hesitant about using their more specialized services (such as simple db).
Yeah in my last job which wasn't a web business we went the virtual server attached to SAN route. It's great tech and works well for HA and expansion. The key difficulty is that there is a high cost of entry. Yes you could also go with having someone host this for you but at least with the vendors I've talked to there is always a long term contract associated.
You are right that on the technical side there isn't much that's very new about "cloud" computing. The key difference in these offerings is that with Amazon there is no contract, no minimum monthly and no upfront cost. You pay for what you turn on and how you use it (virtual server time, storage used, data transfer).
For a startup where every investor dollar is important this is a huge benefit. We previously had a much more traditional managed hosting environment (hardware load balancer, web servers, oracle back end with RAC on SAN). In a sense you are attempting to predict your load and paying for capacity upfront. Even assuming we hit the full capacity (bandwidth usage, storage, cpu) of our previous setup for a month - at Amazon the cost is about one tenth.
Also as you stated:
"When I need to add another ESX node to expand my CPU or memory availablility, I add another ESX node."
Of course - but you are limited to the hardware you own or lease. In the case of a "cloud" service, I can turn up extra application servers or database slaves based on load or in a simpler scenario just based on traffic patterns over the course of the day. I can then shut these extra servers off when load trails off or during my normal off peak hours. I only pay for the time the servers were active and have no hardware procurement costs or contractual lease obligations. Conversely if Amazon messes up
There are a number of ways these services can be used but certainly in mission critical applications at this point ESX + SAN is going to be more reliable. Although nothing says a mix can't be beneficial. It really depends on specific business needs.
You are confusing S3 with Amazon's SimpleDB service. I currently don't use SimpleDB. We use a SQL relational database cluster running on ec2 instances. We backup/recover off of S3. Going to another host is a matter of redoing the backup scripts (easy) and changing the asset server settings from pointing to S3 to wherever the data is now being stored.
I'm thinking on any number of tools built around ec2 to support this behavior. Some are commercial offerings (like rightscale.com or scalr.net). You can however roll your own methods to do this if you like.
Basically you can use open source monitoring tools to check for whatever states you need to look for (server down, cpu load too heavy etc.) and trigger actions based on that (bring up another server). There is nothing really magical that the pay services are doing. It's just a cost question, roll your own tools or pay for what is out there.
I highly doubt a majority of businesses are going to lock themselves into one hosting provider's specific development platform just to take advantage of hosted servers that push themselves into the next layer."
This depends on the service. Amazon's ec2 is basically just Xen virtual servers provisioned on the fly. s3 is a little weird but there are plenty of tools available to use it in whatever your application is running on. Code changes to support it are not all that difficult.
The cost analysis was really what did it versus our managed hosting plan (1/10th the cost per month). Auto scaling and healing of the application cluster was also a benefit. To scale with a traditional host meant getting locked into a contract for the added server(s).
One thing about ec2 is that it forces you to use best practices for disaster recovery. Instances don't commonly just "disappear" but you need to plan for it. Well tuned ec2 images can have your site up and restored from backup automatically within minutes.
ec2 / s3 is far from perfect and certainly won't meet everyone's needs. The downtime s3 has seen (like last weekend) would be devastating to some businesses. Of course even with a traditional host you may have downtime due to truck crash or other random act.
aciiiiiiiid raaaaaaaaain
on venus in your lungs it causes pain
aciiiiiiiiid raaaaaaaaain
to colonize some say is just insane
aciiiiiiiid raaaaaaaaain
see cities well they just don't fly like planes
I realize in the article's case they are plugging into the grid so they don't need batteries but how green are batteries used in off the grid housing?
Not to mention a truck stop sloppy joe for dinner and truck stop sloppy ho for dessert!
The problem with BC world PVP is that there isn't much of a reward for doing it. The item rewards are pretty useless. You will out level them before you get them. Since there isn't really a compelling reason to control the world pvp areas, people rarely bother.
I'm sure if they opened up a level 70 PVP area in Netherstorm or Shadowmoon Valley and rewarded badges of justice that would see some activity.
And then you hit Hellfire Peninsula and spend three or more long, painful levels staring a the Mars like terrain getting squished by random fel reavers. Then you leave and are happy never to return to it.
Or alternately, House of the Dead 2 & 3.
sed...
This wasn't a case of someone just doing it against management wishes. If you look at the time frame Intel was struggling because the Pentium 4M (mobile) chips were not power efficient. They were hot and sucked down battery life. As a result Pentium 3 mobile chips were still being sold in laptops that were designed for mobility versus the desktop replacements (P4M). Initially the Pentium 3 Mobile Tulatin core was released in speeds up to 1.4GHz.
From Tulatin the Pentium M was developed by the Israeli group which then lead to the Core and Core 2.
Intel was aware that it needed a mobile replacement for the Pentium 4 and this drove development of the Pentium M and Core processors.
The Core2 processors were the first to be used as Intel's primary desktop CPU as well as mobile CPU. At this point the Core2 outperformed the Pentium 4 and didn't suffer from the P4's problems with power and heat generation. It isn't as though the Core2 just popped out of nowhere. The CPU was part of Intel's evolutionary plans for a mobile CPU going back to the P3 mobile.
More like pointless. Believe it or not electronics technology has improved significantly since the 1960s.
"Establishing a society more friendly to US interests in the middle of the Mideast, while expensive in every measure, provides a needed (and potentially infectious) stress relief in the region."
Oh so we are reducing stress in the region? Gee, I hadn't noticed that. Also keep in mind that for an example the majority of the 9/11 terrorists came from Saudi Arabia - a country friendly to US interests.
Propping up a US friendly government does not instantly make you popular with the people of the country. I suggest looking into the history of Iran as a good example.
Apple's marketing dept is smart enough to realize that in 2008 a television commercial is not a comprehensive marketing plan.
Other companies would KILL for the kind of press Apple gets when it announces products. Did you need to see a commercial to know that the iPhone was coming out? Did anyone?
Yay! Do I get new magical powers when I go up a level?
The Core is probably the greatest modern example of a truly horrible film. There are so many bad, stupid and ridiculous plot elements it is almost impossible to list them all. Let's not discuss the acting. Or even the special effects (how does one depict something that travels through solid rock).
I loved it.
$15 is two lunches at mediocre restaurants (including anything not on the discount menu at a fast food place) where I live. So sure if I ate two lunches a month for $15 I wouldn't think much of it. At the end of the year I might say "those McDonalds lunches weren't worth $180". The amount of money over time seems like a lot but you probably blow $15 a month on trivial items anyway. The classic example is a date for two to the movies with popcorn and a soda (over $25 in my town).
I'm not saying that WoW was worth YOUR $15 a month to you. That's of course your judgement. For many the entertainment they get is worth the nominal expenditure.
Concerning the Sims, yes it doesn't require a monthly payment. It doesn't have an ongoing monthly cost to the developers either. There are no servers to run, bandwidth to pay for etc. Once the release is gold the ongoing costs are minimal and the Sims team is off and running on making an expansion or sequel. MMOs are more service than product.
And yes Guild Wars did the "free mmo" thing but they also released 3 full price expansions in a short time frame. The game architecture is also less complex due to it's hub and instance structure.