Server Maintenance - Wednesday 23rd 21GMT

[robo]

Server Maintenance - Wednesday, March 23 - I, II, III DE, and IV

WHAT: Server Maintenance (Multiplayer Servers) WHEN: 2022-03-23T21:00:00Z (UTC) EST. DOWNTIME: 1-2 HOURS GAMES & PLATFORMS: Age of Empires: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store) Age of Empires II: Definitive Edition (Steam / Microsoft Store) Age of Empires III: Definitive Edition...

forums.ageofempires.com

 

[Überrushung]

i still don't understand why server maintenance always happens during peak european playing times...

 

[MembTV]

i still don't understand why server maintenance always happens during peak european playing times...

Is not European is the prime time in general if you check numbers, voobly always made the servers maintenance in early mornings but I guess everyone who work for this things are usa but can’t believe they can’t get anyone that can make this like at 8-10 am europe time.

This is bad for everyone.

 

[ProudObuch]

Is not European is the prime time in general if you check numbers, voobly always made the servers maintenance in early mornings but I guess everyone who work for this things are usa but can’t believe they can’t get anyone that can make this like at 8-10 am europe time.

This is bad for everyone.

They probably work 8 hours a day. lets say 5h because lets say it takes 3h for some reason (a critical server error or whatever). in these 5 hours they do it exactly at peak time. Idiotic

 

[robo]

Normal people work a 9-5 job, so it has to be done somewhere in that period. Microsoft is located in Seattle, and Relic is in Vancouver, both of which are GMT-7, so 16-24gmt.

You dont want to start maintenance at 9am, as if any critical staff members are delayed getting to work it will mess up everyone elses day, so the earliest start time is 10am.
Maintenance wants to be completed before the end of the work day so that people can go home/not have to work overtime, or leave the servers offline for 12+ hours, so therefore the absolute latest they could start would be 3pm, allowing 2 hours but no extra time in case something goes wrong, so 2pm is the reality.

So maintenance logically should start between 10-14 which is 17-21gmt, and it currently starts at the latest time. I'm not sure if starting at 17gmt would be any better for players, or if there is anything else that makes the later start time more practical.

 

[oozkan]

Lol if I weren't a software architect, I would believe above post.

In software world, go-live mostly happen in weekends and maintenance windows usually happen midnight (especially in banking apps), at least in business applications where I am specialized so there must be a special windows for gaming industry. Let's talk agile (since it is most common new-gen methodology), maintenance is not your regular 9 to 18 (it is not 9-5 btw) sprint where you develop your features, that's your regular sprint development cycle although lately flexible hours trendy. That's why we name it Dev-Ops, operations team works differently although they work hand in hand with development team to achieve best result.

There are measures like recuperation day, extra pay if you have to work weekend or during maintenance windows, continuous service, minimum disruption of customer are important KPIs of a go-live even some companies that work with subscription can increase subscription of user according to off times. Personally as project lead I would hear very bad things from CXO executives if I planned a maintenance during prime time. Theoritically cost of going down during prime time would be a lot more than overtime premium of your devs, and usually (of course there are exceptions) developers enjoys overtimes and even travels if they are compensated fairly, such as per diem is a magical word.

 

[Michaerbse]

Lol if I weren't a software architect, I would believe above post.

In software world, go-live mostly happen in weekends and maintenance windows usually happen midnight (especially in banking apps), at least in business applications where I am specialized so there must be a special windows for gaming industry. Let's talk agile (since it is most common new-gen methodology), maintenance is not your regular 9 to 18 (it is not 9-5 btw) sprint where you develop your features, that's your regular sprint development cycle although lately flexible hours trendy. That's why we name it Dev-Ops, operations team works differently although they work hand in hand with development team to achieve best result.

There are measures like recuperation day, extra pay if you have to work weekend or during maintenance windows, continuous service, minimum disruption of customer are important KPIs of a go-live even some companies that work with subscription can increase subscription of user according to off times. Personally as project lead I would hear very bad things from CXO executives if I planned a maintenance during prime time. Theoritically cost of going down during prime time would be a lot more than overtime premium of your devs, and usually (of course there are exceptions) developers enjoys overtimes and even travels if they are compensated fairly, such as per diem is a magical word.

While what you write is true, you already name the differences yourself. Downtimes on the weekend only make sense for business applications / B2B, for B2C you would want to explicitly not put them to the weekend.

You say that the costs of a downtime are higher than the staff overtime costs. This is valid for business applications because employees are not able to do their job during that time or even production has to stop. For B2C (e.g. travel portals or whatever) customers would not be able to conduct purchases during that time.
But what are the costs of a monthly 2 hour downtime for FE/MS really? Do you really think that there are significantly less people buying the game because it has a monthly downtime for multiplayer?

 

[oozkan]

But what are the costs of a monthly 2 hour downtime for FE/MS really? Do you really think that there are significantly less people buying the game because it has a monthly downtime for multiplayer?

I don't know answer of your question, they should probably calculate themselves in their BI applications, I believe they have better professionals than me in that area.

I just answered general misconception, because above post was giving completely misguided information without any knowledge regarding how deployment processes and teams are working in industry. Deployment is not a 9-18 job, especially with possibility of remote working from different timezones, such excuses are not valid. And moreover, why do they assume all jobs have normal hours and only normal people work on those, almost all maintenance jobs in world are done when traffic is slow, from garbage collecting till fixing train lines, electricity lines etc. Why does he even ignore that fact and try to create an excuse for Microsoft?

If they are really working this way, do not expect much improvements in near future, there are best practices in this world and this is a very basic one. I reject to believe firm like MS or related firms who created most of the standards in industry is working this way...

 

[Joyster]

Well, it is easy to assume that some devs from seattle/Vancouver do the maintenance during their 9 to 5 Job, because it fits the timeframe. Otherwise it would mean they would outsource it, to hit a bad time for maintenance…

 

[Potkeny]

I reject to believe firm like MS or related firms who created most of the standards in industry is working this way...

I guess you never played any MMO, gaming industry successfully conditioned gamers to accept maintenance during normal (for the devs) work-hours, and is what I experience in most games (with online service).

Truly big game-companies might try to move maintenance-window to less populated times, but I doubt MS considers the aoe2 team important enough to give them extra resources for that.