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FJ Linden

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Blog Entries posted by FJ Linden

  1. FJ Linden
    As most of you are already aware, we are beta testing a new local payments system and we’ve hit a few bumps in the road. Again, we want to apologize for any inconvenience that this has caused for Residents using the beta system and we are here to help you get your issues resolved quickly.

    For those who have been affected, here is some information to help you get back up and running in Second Life.

    PayPal is Now Available as an Option in the Local Payments Beta
    Last week, we introduced PayPal as a payment option to choose from. So, if you’re in the beta, and would like to use PayPal, then just go to the billing management page and click “Add PayPal.” Once that’s done, you can then choose to associate PayPal with a recurring payment on that page. If you have an outstanding balance, then we will process the payment (within a day), your account will be back in good standing, and your PayPal account will continue to be billed on a monthly basis, as expected.

    Customers Affected by Billing Issues Will be Automatically Migrated Back to Main Payments System on Monday
    We have identified a small number of accounts that are nearing delinquency, or are delinquent, as a result of the known issues with the payments system beta. While we are working on the fix, we will switch those Residents back to the main payments system by 5pm PT on Monday, June 6. That should resolve your payment issues immediately, although you will lose the ability to pay in local currencies and other payment methods. The affected Residents will receive an email tomorrow and on Monday with more information. So, keep an eye out for emails from us and you can always call Customer Support at the 1-800 numbers provided in our previous blog post.

    For additional information, please read the Local Payments FAQ on the SL Wiki. And, thanks for your patience as we roll out the new payments system.
  2. FJ Linden
    We recently began beta testing a new system that enables our international customers to use local currencies and other local payment methods when purchasing Linden dollars and conducting other financial transactions with Linden Lab. We want to make it easier, and less expensive, for our international customers to shop and do business in Second Life. After all, wouldn’t it be nice to use your own currency, or PayPal, to purchase Linden dollars and also save money on fees? We think so too.

    Based on our beta testing to date, we’ve learned a lot and discovered a few issues that we want to change and improve. So, I wanted to share our progress and what to expect as we roll this capability out to all international users later this year.
     
    Recent Billing Issues Will Not Affect Your Account Status: For those that have run into billing glitches, let me put your mind at ease. Some international customers have tried to pay us (to keep their account current) and they were unable to complete the transaction. If you’ve encountered this problem, then please accept our apologies. Rest assured that everyone who was not able to provide payments, due to this system issue, have already had their accounts manually restored as we work to implement a fix. The affected accounts are still in good standing and these customers will not lose their status or land as a consequence. Local Payments Will be Available in all Supported Viewers: Another concern that has been raised by the community is whether users can purchase Linden dollars using local currencies in Viewer 1.23. The answer is yes, although some people using Viewer 1.23 may have run into issues purchasing Linden dollars a few weeks ago. The issue has since been fixed. Now, customers who are in this beta can purchase Linden dollars using all supported Viewers. We Need to Make the Local Payments System Easier to Use: On the usability side, we have beta tested local payments with new and current international customers and we’ve found we need some additional usability work to ensure that purchasing Linden dollars (and other transactions) is an easier, intuitive experience. While we are doing that, we will not add any new or current Residents to the beta system instead they will stay on the standard payments system.  But if you have already been using the local payments beta version, then you will continue to do so while we continue getting ready for a wider roll out.
    In late July, we’ll be ready to provide all of our international customers with comprehensive local payment options in a system that works seamlessly and is easy to use. I’ll be updating you again as we get closer to releasing the system. Thanks for you patience as we work out the kinks.

    And, if you have additional questions about the system, then there’s a comprehensive Local Payments article with a Help and Frequently Asked Questions (including how to contact Support) in English, Français, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Português, and 日本語.
    Note: This blog post is also available in Français, Deutsch, Español, Italiano, Português, and 日本語.
  3. FJ Linden
    As we begin 2011, I want to share the progress that we’re making on several important technology enhancements that I discussed in my last post.  As I mentioned, we are focused on improving the overall performance of Second Life while addressing some long standing limitations such as  raising group limits, improving the chat system, and reducing lag.
    Group Limits Raised to 42 Today
    In October, we committed to increase group limits from the current 25 up to 40 in the first quarter of 2011. As of today, group limits have been raised to 42! To add groups beyond the previous limit of 25, you must be using Viewer  2.4 (or a more recent version). And if you’re still using Viewer 1.23, or a third-party viewer based on Viewer 1.23 code, then you can add more groups in Viewer 2.4 and they will still be accessible when you switch back to Viewer 1.23.
    That said, if there is an unexpected load, then we may need to lower the group limitation to maintain acceptable performance levels across the grid. If we decide to do that, then any Residents who have up to 42  groups will not lose their memberships. But, other Residents will not be able to exceed the new limit.
    Group Chat System Will Launch Gridwide By March 31st
    We were set to deploy a prototype of the new group chat system in December, but last minute licensing issues were found with our chosen open source library. Now that a solution is in place, we expect to have the prototype available by the end of this month and an industry standard and high performing group chat system available by the end of this quarter.
    Performance Improvements When Teleporting and Crossing Regions
    As you teleport, or cross regions, all of your avatar data (often a very  large amount of data) needs to be processed by both source and destination regions. In order to streamline this process, we are now compressing avatar information, making your teleports and region crossings faster and more reliable. In fact, we’ve found that teleport failures, due to avatar complexity, have dropped 40%. See the graph below for a more detailed view showing how much we’ve shortened region crossing time.

    Viewer 2.5 Beta Releasing Soon

    We will soon launch the latest version of the Second Life Viewer -- Viewer 2.5 Beta. In addition to more performance and stability improvements, we’ve added enhanced web-based profiles, accessible both on the web and in the Viewer. And, if you wish, you can even connect your Second Life profile to other social identities including Twitter, Facebook, and LinkedIn! You will also have the option in Preferences to choose your first inworld destination from the saved Landmarks in your Favorites Bar. This is very handy when you need to get to a specific destination quickly.
    Also, one of the most important new features added to Viewer 2.4 was the auto-updater capability. If you're using Viewer 2.4 or higher, then you won’t be inconvenienced by the notification and download process when we release a new Viewer.
    Planning to Implement Significant Grid Infrastructure Enhancements in 2011
    We’re planning significant grid infrastructure enhancements throughout the year including technologies to speed server-side rendering (SSR) and server virtualization (web and simulator services). We are also exploring new storage and asset delivery systems. Some of the benefits will not always be noticeable, but they are foundational platform changes that set the stage for rapid performance and scalability improvements. We will continue to keep you updated as we roll out these systems.
    I’m pleased with the progress that we made across the platform last year and I'm looking ahead to newer technologies that we will deploy in 2011 to enhance your Second Life experience. As always, I'll be watching for your feedback and thank you for making Second Life such an amazing place.
  4. FJ Linden
    As  we head into the fourth quarter, I wanted to share some of the progress  that we’ve made since we realigned engineering and created our Platform  team. The team is comprised of simulator, services, and viewer  developers and testers (Platform Development), as well as our  operations, IT, data warehouse and customer support teams (Platform  Operations). The focus of the teams will be to drive “back to basics”  improvements across the grid and evolve our current architecture into a  scalable set of services and APIs. Let’s take a look at our progress  over the last few months, delivering against the goals that Philip set  at the Second Life Community Convention (SLCC), in August.
    I’m  happy to report that we have already delivered on a number of those,  and are making good progress toward the rest. A few of them may take  longer than we’d originally anticipated, but we plan on completing all  of them.
    Below  you’ll find a list of projects and initiatives we’ve delivered on in  the two months since SLCC, as well as some back-up performance data. A  number of these projects will have a major impact on the Second Life  experience, as we currently know it. Expect to see further posts from  some of the Platform team, focused on how we are improving Second Life  in terms of faster performance, increased stability, and a generally  smoother experience for all.
    Reduced Lag
    Here’s  an interesting factoid: there are about two million teleports in Second  Life every day. Previous to our recent release of Server 1.42, when an avatar teleported or crossed into a new region, everyone on the  destination sim would experience a “lag” event as the simulator stalled  while processing the incoming avatar. This was often experienced as  “jitter” on the sim, especially evident when many avatars arrived at the  same time, such as for a live event. In the new simulation code, this  slow point has been moved to a separate thread. Our simulator  performance profiling tools show that this lag pain point is almost  entirely gone, greatly improving performance for highly trafficked  regions.
    Faster Texture Loading
    In August, we made some changes that improve the speed with which textures are loaded in a scene. Our release of HTTP Textures changed the way textures are delivered to, and loaded in, Viewer 2,  resulting in less waiting around for the scene in front of you to come  into focus. This change will also serve as the foundation for a series  of bigger improvements, including the deployment of a new asset system,  which will improve texture loading and object rez times even more. For  the real techies, here’s the back story: Last month, we moved away from  the Isilon storage clusters, as our primary storage for assets. Most  assets are now stored on Amazon’s S3 platform, and we have deployed a  “middle-layer” caching service, which is where most asset calls will be  served from. The time to complete asset “puts” and “gets” (the times  that the viewer requests assets and times those assets are delivered)  has improved significantly. We reduced the average PUT latency by over  60%, from 1.3 seconds to 0.6 seconds, and our GET latency by 20%, from  0.25 seconds to 0.20 seconds. What does this really mean? Well, when you  add up the cumulative time saved in asset latency across the millions  of requests a day, there is a net savings of over 4,000 hours of time  shaved off of asset latency per day! That translates into less load on  the simulator processes and better rez times in Viewer 2.
    The next step here is to get the simulator out of this process,  and that will happen in early 2011. At that point, we’ll have extended  our asset services and can begin enabling a content delivery network  (CDN), bringing latency-sensitive assets (objects and textures) closer  to Residents for even faster rez times.
    New Chat Service Coming Soon
    We’re  finally going to tackle the group chat problem that has been a Resident  complaint for a long time. Group chat can often be confusing, with  “chat lag” causing responses to appear late, or sometimes not at all.  You should start to see real improvements in this early next year. Over  the last few months, we’ve completed a number of development sprints to  prototype an XMPP service and have decided to move forward with an ejabberd deployment.  We’re targeting to have a test deployment of the new group chat service  by the end of this year, and full production deployment in early 2011.
    Group Limits Will be Raised to 40
    Another  big pain point for Residents is the current limit that lets you be a  member of only 25 groups. We plan to raise this limit to 40 by the end  of this year. In the past, our biggest concern about raising group  limits was potential performance degradation, with additional stress  placed on our central database. After completing some internal analysis,  we now feel comfortable enough to extend group limits up to 40. I’ll  put a qualifier on the group limits increase, however, and state that if  we see a decrease in performance (i.e., more lag), then we may decide  to roll back to the 25 limit again.
    Snowstorm Driving Viewer 2 Improvements
    At SLCC, we announced Project Snowstorm,  our new open development program for Second Life’s Viewer 2 client  software. Snowstorm is already incorporating Resident input,  particularly around a more customizable user interface, has produced a  number of beta releases, and is deploying daily open-source code  releases. You’ll see the first fruits of their efforts in production  very shortly, with the release of Viewer 2.2.
    New Main Grid Deployment Process
    It  was pretty clear that if we were going to make velocity improvements,  then we needed to be able to update our server software more than three  to four times per year.  As Lil Linden discussed last month,  we have significantly changed our deploy process and are now deploying  code on a weekly basis to the main grid (Agni). This means that bug  fixes will be deployed faster and new features and functionality don’t  have to pile up and wait for the next major “release train.”  It also  means that if we do encounter problems, then we are able to quickly back  out the changes, without affecting other code that is working properly.  This process also works much better with the agile development  practices that we have formalized internally over the last three months.
    Display Names and Mesh Public Betas Available Today
    While  we’re focusing our resources for the moment on platform improvements  designed to make Second Life faster, easier to use, and more fun for all  Residents, we are also testing two new features that had been in  development for some time before SLCC. The new Display Names feature is in public beta, and will enable more freedom of expression in Second Life. We have also just launched the public beta of Mesh Import,  which will revolutionize content creation in Second Life. So I  encourage you to download the Project Viewers and share your feedback.
    I’ll  share more with you on our “back to basics” technology projects in  coming weeks and months. In the meantime, I’m looking forward to hearing  your thoughts on our recent progress in the comments below. And, as  always, thanks for all of your passion and participation.
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