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Second Life grid flutters to flutter a while longer
Just lately, over the last month and a half or so, regular Second Life users will have spotted an increase in subsystem outages, including transaction failures, object and teleportation problems, and just general weirdness. Systems seem to be experiencing trouble that you could just about set a watch by. Linden Lab's Frank Ambrose explains that that is to be expected and there's some more to come as some of the oldest pieces of the Second Life infrastructure are ripped out for replacement or relocation from their original site at the San Francisco data-center.
Second Life search upgrades in late January
It's always enlightening to hear from Frank Ambrose at Linden Lab. His posts about Second Life architecture, when they appear, are generally packed with information about upcoming plans, pending architecture changes and more. Clear, to the point and generally very few signs of spin (although a bit of distressing a tendency to type 'LAG' in all-caps). Overall, it's what we like to see more of. In a similar vein, there's a notice from Liana Linden about some late-January upgrades to the Google appliances that handle much of Second Life's search infrastructure. There's a few additional benefits in the wings there, to be sure, and well laid-out.
Exclusive interview with Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon
Mark Kingdon, Linden Lab's CEO, has been a bit of a mystery figure since his appointment about a year and a half ago. While he has not been uncommunicative, it's been hard to get a very good sense of the man at the helm of Linden Lab, his passions, interests and direction. We were very pleased, therefore, when he took the time to sit down with us and answer a whole grab-bag of questions, about himself, about Linden Lab, and – of course – about Second Life. Bear with us, because we've got a lot of ground to cover.
How green was my virtual valley? Linden Lab pairs with Terremark
One of the tales you see circulating in the media every quarter is that the carbon footprint of a Second Life avatar is the same as that of a citizen of Brazil, based on energy consumption. The story goes around a few times each year, though technically it wasn't really all that accurate even when it began to circulate. Around the time that the calculation was done, Linden Lab was already in the process of slashing power-consumption across its facilities, and presently uses only a third compared to similar servers. Plus, there's the little detail that the carbon footprint of the average Brazilian is quite small, a mere fraction of the world average. Now the Lab is moving into newer, greener pastures err ... facilities, having closed a deal with Miami-based Terremark to start moving Second Life servers into Terremark's colocation facilities outside of Washington DC.
Taser International vs Linden Lab: Crack Den crackdown
Taser International Inc have filed a lawsuit against Linden Lab (and others, including some present and some departed) staff. We got a hold of the April 17 complaint yesterday, and have been going through it since then. We've got a summary of the complaint and issues for you, but we won't be linking to the complaint due to the presence of what may be considered to be pornographic images in Exhibit 2. The "crack den" reference in the headline is a recurring phrase in the legal complaint. You'll see why. If you want the one-sentence summary, Taser seem to have failed to do their homework and basic research, but their case doesn't seem to be entirely without merit either.
Ambrose updates on Second Life grid initiatives
January/February always seems to be a rockier time for the Second Life grid. The grid tends to behave quite unreliably through this period, though there never seem to be metrics that suggest that it is being placed under unusual user-loads during the unreliable stretches. Nevertheless there's a lot going on under the hood as Frank Ambrose, Linden Lab's Senior vice-president of Global Technology reminds us. Ambrose outlined a number of Q1-deliverable initiatives for the Second Life grid and has provided a status report outlining where most of those are at, and noting a few additional, and unexpected difficulties.
January Second Life grid technology updates
Linden Lab's Frank Ambrose (AKA FJ Linden) has provided another progress report on ongoing reforms to Second Life's underlying technological infrastructure. Ambrose's updates are among the most informative that you'll find on Linden Lab's blog. You may recall that in early 2007, Linden Lab switched the asset storage system to Isilon Systems storage clusters (the same sorts of high-performance storage-clusters that are used by Sony, ABC, Turner, NASA and Facebook).
Frank Ambrose updates on Second Life stability
Linden Lab's Frank Ambrose (FJ Linden) has issued another update on ongoing efforts to improve on the issues that have been a thorn in the side of Second Life users for some time. Ambrose points to the last four weeks as "a good stretch of grid stability" and implying that the only serious problems were confined to an approximately three hour period during the middle of the month. This leaves us wondering whether he's talking about the same grid that we're familiar with, or if perhaps there's not some new definition of stability that we might have missed the press release for. The last four weeks has seen no less than 20 unplanned stability issues reported on the grid's status blog, and a number that went unreported there. That's not even counting the failed rollout of SLS1.25 simulator code, which caused additional difficulties -- or issues with ancillary services.
New Linden Lab VP with an old message
Linden Lab's Frank Ambrose has weighed in with his first public statement. Unless you've been following the Second Life news here at Massively, you probably had no idea who Ambrose is, or that he'd been hired by the Lab as Senior VP of Global Technology. Ambrose delivers the basic message that we hear in virtually every infrastructure-related announcement for the last several years: Scalability and stability. Unfortunately, after three years, users indicate that they're finding the promises wearing a little thin. That is not to say that there haven't been some improvements in these areas. On Sunday, 14 September Second Life user-concurrency rose to 69,754 (and notably without an associated infrastructure collapse). That's an overall increase of 17,859 in one year. If that trend continues, Second Life will have eclipsed the popularity of Everquest at its height, in a little more than a year. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
Linden Lab sets terror-alert level to 'Google'
Linden Lab certainly showed signs of fear when Google's Lively kicked off its public beta. Now we're seeing signs more akin to terror, panic or desperation. 'Who wouldn't be concerned when Google comes after their business?' said new Linden Lab CEO Mark Kingdon to Bloomberg. Given recent changes and marketing pushes, you can see Linden Lab's management showing a sheen of sweat. Curiously, it seems that Google isn't after Linden Lab's business -- Lively's certainly no competitor to the business that Linden Lab has. However, what Google represents seems to be a threat to the business that Linden Lab wants to have. This week saw the hiring of Frank Ambrose (AOL's head of technology for infrastructure and network services for a decade) as Senior VP of global technology. While Ambrose has more tech knowledge than the average suit in his position, his primary competencies seem to be negotiations, coordination, contracts and costs -- which all marries up nicely with Linden Lab making a push into corporate, government and military sales, and hiring additional staff to do just that. We're not sure what they're going to be selling, exactly, but virtual environment meeting spaces are probably right at the top of the list. Are you a part of the most widely-known collaborative virtual environment or keeping a close eye on it? Massively's Second Life coverage keeps you in the loop.
