Carrying out a duel after an assault, the player does not think about the technical side of WoT. Let's try to openly and clearly see all the processes taking place outside your computer.
Initial Steps
To start, let's understand the concepts. Server - software that performs specific tasks, without the role of a person. Cluster of servers - computers united for actions in the form of a single resource. For the growth of ping characteristics and convenient play, the exclusive game cluster was moved to Russia from Munich. This landmark event came out in 2011. But at the same time there was another program problem. With every restart of servers, players do not have every chance to visit the game, which is bad for the style of the company.
Since such a function had to be performed several times a week, it was necessary to find a way out of the existing alteration. Specialists and creators of the game in add-on 0.9.20.1.4 changed the concept of all actions. In the center was the head link, where absolutely all information about all users was stored, and on the sides - the periphery of the servers. Gamers, participating in battles, are present on peripheral servers, and the center serves all these servers. As a result, we have a multi-cluster system that will not allow you to look into the game if the central module is damaged, but it will be possible to continue playing, because. the player is located on a video game server that is not connected to the main one.
Geography of game servers
A recognizable precedent is that the closer the World of Tanks server is to a certain gamer, the better it is for the game in terms of performance. WG has located its own data centers in the areas of the main concentration of gamers. A building or a room where all server hardware is located and is called a data center. The scope of the motivated audience of the game surprises with its scale. Server locations are located in various countries of the world and are focused on serving gamers in one area or another. Moscow, Novosibirsk, Krasnoyarsk, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Luxembourg, and similarly the cities of America are places where a large number of server and software work for good players, and similarly thousands of employees. Similarly, there are Korean, Asian and Singaporean clusters.
Everyone wants to play
What forces must be in order to satisfy such a gigantic audience? In the early periods of World of Tanks, one cluster could take out 250 thousand gamers online in the area. At the same time, with such a load, the workload for data reached about 5-7 Gb / s. The situation today has changed significantly due to the growth of peripheral servers. The cluster in itself combines up to 80 physical servers with an overload on any of about 3 thousand gamers and traffic of less than 70 Mbps.
How does all this work in practice?
The process of acquiring the latest addition to the game looks like the following way. It is uploaded to the content delivery network (CDN) and servers that distribute add-ons. For the speed and continuity of the download process, the launcher generates a torrent file that allows you to continue the interrupted download. The launcher requests the add-on distribution server and receives a link to a patch update or a torrent file. The next process is to enter the game and select the game server. When the main server proves the correctness of the login and password, the player goes to one of the game servers. The automatic server selection contains a difficult scheme, including both the analysis of the characteristics of the player and the workload of the servers. A player of the RU-region can find himself on any periphery, even in Amsterdam and Novosibirsk, but you can always choose a server to your liking manually. In fact, separate servers are allocated to each process.
One server is responsible for authorization, another is responsible for being in the hangar, and others are addicted to system information. Such a distribution of "obligations" allows the average gamer not to see failures and to finish the session in a relaxed way. When the periphery "falls", if this happens, you need to reboot the cluster. But with the loss of the usual work of only one physical. server, the cluster basically remains in operation, which will allow gamers to continue playing. The worst thing that can happen is the failure of the server on which the player was playing at the time of the failure. When "departing" and re-entering, the game will issue a message about the impossibility of authorization, due to the connection of the player to another peripheral. Every two hours, the accounts of all players are saved to a shared database. If you start up on other peripherals, which is technically likely, from problem areas, then 2-hour progress from a broken server will be lost. For this reason, the definition label will not provide anywhere to enter until the "fallen" periphery is rebooted.
Protection is the key to success
The World of Tanks game makes extensive use of backup and duplicate copying technologies for the smooth operation of all network and service equipment. Similarly, duplicated hard drives, power supplies with different power supplies and independent Internet providers with separate ways of approaching communication lines are used. Improving the methods of technical protection against failures has made it possible to achieve great stability of the game and the invisibility of the impact of breakdowns on the gameplay for ordinary players. Progress does not stand still and WG keeps pace with innovations, trying to introduce them into our beloved World of Tanks game, and similarly develops the rest of the company's work.
Game page: World of Tanks.
