As our regular users will have noticed, since the end of last week, Board Game Arena has been handling a very heavy load. More and more users are connecting and playing, from every part of the world.
This exceptional situation is putting online services under pressure. Because of Covid-19, many people are locked at home. We cannot visit friends. We cannot have parties. We cannot have game nights. So we are moving much of our lives online, and for people who love to play board games, that means playing online.
Of course, nobody could expect this situation. We were not prepared for this.
All the weekend, we have been monitoring the situation and working to find ways to handle the load better. Before last week, our highest load was about 4000 players connected at the same time. On Thursday, we hit 5000 and it was still ok. On Friday, we hit 7000 and the service crashed. We were able to restore it 40 minutes later, then found and solved the problem. We also set up some possibilities to disable non essential functionalities to prioritize welcoming people to play. On Saturday night, with those changes we managed to welcome up to 9000 players connected at the same time, with some lagging but without a major crash. That's a little crazy if you ask us 🙂
Then on Sunday, we were examining the situation and what we could do and realized that there were just too many issues and that we needed to limit the load in order to be able to work on the problems without being blocked by managing crashes all the time. So we put in place a limit to the number of connected users (premium excepted), that matches what the service can currently handle without major slowdowns.
Now, we will be working on increasing the server capacity to raise this limit progressively to be able to welcome more and more players with a correct service level. Maybe some people would think that "it's just a matter of setting up some some more servers", but it's more complicated than that. Some of the load can be distributed, some can not. What's causing problems is what cannot be distributed, the "bottlenecks". For example, in order to get into the games, you must all get in the same place to join games, in the game lobby. So among other things we are working on making the lobby able to hold more people at the same time.
To sum it up to our old users, please be patient! We are working on making things better. And to our new users, you are discovering the service at a very special moment, so you may encounter some unexpected issues. Sorry about that, but in any case, welcome! We are happy and proud to be able to provide a service that is appreciated in this stressful time.
Please take good care of you and of the communities around you in real life and online!
The BGA team.
Srčni utrip BGA: kaj se dogaja doc?
Kot so opazili naši redni uporabniki, je Board Game Arena od konca preteklega tedna Board Game Arena zelo veliko breme.
Vse več uporabnikov se povezuje in igra iz vseh delov sveta.
Ta izjemna situacija povzroča pritisk na spletne storitve.
Zaradi Covid-19 je veliko ljudi zaprtih doma.
Ne moremo obiskati prijateljev.
Ne moremo imeti zabav.
Ne moremo imeti nočnih iger.
Tako se večji del svojega življenja gibljemo po spletu in za ljudi, ki radi igrajo družabne igre, to pomeni igrati na spletu.
Tega stanja seveda nihče ni mogel pričakovati.
Na to nismo bili pripravljeni.
Ves konec tedna smo spremljali stanje in si prizadevali najti načine, kako bolje obvladati tovor.
Pred prejšnjim tednom je bilo naše največje obremenitev približno 4000 igralcev hkrati.
V četrtek smo zadeli 5000 in še vedno je bilo ok.
V petek smo zadeli 7000 in servis se je sesul.
40 minut pozneje smo ga lahko obnovili, nato pa težavo našli in rešili.
Vzpostavili smo tudi nekaj možnosti za onemogočanje nebistvenih funkcij, da bi dali prednost sprejemanju ljudi, da se igrajo.
V soboto zvečer smo s temi spremembami uspeli sprejeti do 9000 igralcev, povezanih hkrati, z nekaj zaostajanja, vendar brez večjih nesreč.
To je malo noro, če nas vprašate
Nato smo v nedeljo preučili situacijo in kaj bi lahko storili ter ugotovili, da je le preveč vprašanj in da moramo omejiti obremenitev, da bomo lahko delali na težavah, ne da bi bili ves čas blokirani z upravljanjem zrušitev .
Tako smo postavili omejitev števila povezanih uporabnikov (izvzeti premija), ki ustreza temu, kar lahko storitev obravnava brez večjih upočasnitev.
Zdaj bomo delali na povečanju zmogljivosti strežnika, da bi to mejo postopoma dvignili, da bomo lahko sprejeli vse več igralcev s pravilno stopnjo storitve.
Mogoče bi nekateri pomislili, da je "samo stvar nastavitve nekaterih več strežnikov", vendar je bolj zapleteno kot to.
Nekateri tovor se lahko porazdeli, nekateri ne morejo.
Težave povzročajo tisto, česar ni mogoče razdeliti, "ozka grla".
Če želite na primer vstopiti v igre, morate vsi priti na isto mesto, da se pridružite igram, v preddverju iger.
Tako med drugim delamo na tem, da bi v čakalnici lahko bilo hkrati več ljudi.
Če ga povzamemo našim starim uporabnikom, bodite potrpežljivi!
Delamo na tem, da stvari izboljšamo.
In našim novim uporabnikom storitev odkrivate v zelo posebnem trenutku, zato boste morda naleteli na nekaj nepričakovanih težav.
Oprosti zaradi tega, vsekakor pa dobrodošli!
Veseli in ponosni smo, da lahko zagotovimo storitev, ki je cenjena v tem stresnem času.
Prosimo, da v resničnem življenju in na spletu dobro poskrbite za vas in za skupnosti okoli vas!
Ekipa BGA.