Dorn Gustafson

There are plenty of rules and restrictions as to what a person can and cannot do with a Region after purchase. And lots of tutorials on setting up, renting, joining, etc, etc, etc. But where are the words that explain what Linden Research ACTUALLY provides along with the use of their software? At US$1000. "setup" cost and US$295 per month, a Full Region is NOT cheap. The Lindens explain the fees as similar to "renting space on a hard drive" which is ridiculous. You can BUY a 4TB hard drive for about $200. So, we are buying CPU cycles, mainly. And the services and server software that provide databases, our "land", and access to it, etc, etc, in Second Life. So where are the words that state how much CPU power we are gonna have when we purchase a Region? I have found words that say that more than one region may exist on one hardware server. So they don't guarantee that we won't share a hardware server with 4 or 5 high-traffic shopping or club regions. Is there cpu cycle sharing software running on these servers? LAG is a big problem in some regions, and if I am gonna pay so much for land, I want a GUARANTEE about how much CPU I am buying! I have an ultra-powerful desktop and have seen extreme lag on Full Regions where very few avatars are rezzed. This while making sure that I am wearing very few scripts and very few attached prims. My network speed is rated better than 90% of the US (Comcast cable modem) at Speedtest.net, so it has nothing to do with network bandwidth. In a nutshell, does Linden Research sell me part of a server when I buy a region? And if so, how much? How much CPU am I guaranteed? Or is it just "You pay your money and take what you get?" Thanks in advance for your reponse. Dorn Gustafson Question Answered - Thank you for your responses! I found the answer to my question in a suggested Wiki. http://wiki.secondlife.com/wiki/Server_architecture from that wiki.... Other servers Central Backbone Agent Database - Agent DB keeps track of metadata<->item id (UUID) mapping Central DB (CDB) - a list of who owns what, used for billing, etc Find DB (replica of Central DB used for search) Map server - renders overall map with OpenGL RPC server - API for developers to manupulate Second Life without using the viewer Translates XMLRPC server into in-world requests Communicates with space server and CDB Region Conductor - Looks for regions that should be running, but are down. Start those regions on a sim host that has room for it . Grid Restart Modes Startup Mode: Regions are stuck on the current sim host Normal Mode: Regions are sent to a random sim host So, apparently regions are run on hardware servers or "sim hosts" randomly when they startup in normal mode. That seems fair as long as the hardware is kept current. It is actually the fairest way of handling the problem, (do I get as much cpu as any other region?), as far as I can see. Thanks again, Dorn

What exactly IS server side baking? Please explain it and compare it with what happens currently, (client side baking?) Will all of the textures STAY on the server, putting all that EXTRA load on the SIMS? Or will it be a special set of texture baking servers, independent of the SIMs? Thank you!