[cod] CoD4 server requirements: Please rate my hardware

[Alan Clegg]

Georgecooldude wrote:

> What do you think would run on a 2.4ghz quad core xeon and 4-5gb ram?
> 80gb 10,000rpm drive on 100mbit connection?

Too many people ask this question for me not to put my nose directly
into it... here goes.

As with my day job, these questions can't really be answered without
knowing a lot more about the environment.  Yes, lots of things depend on
CPU, disk, ram, etc. but your network connection is much more important.

I have yet to see any true traffic analysis of a COD4 server, so I can't
tell you how many instances you could run over a true 100mbit LAN
connection.

When people say "I have a 100mbit connection", that's all well and good,
as that is what you have decided to pay for.

I doubt, however, that your provider gives you that full 100mbit to the
outside world.

Take as an example, my house.  I have a gigabit switch between some
servers, 100mbit in most rooms, and 54mbit wireless.   With all of the
wonderful infrastructure, I still only have 4Mbit to the outside world
(thanks, Timewarner for not offering FIOS).  I guess that I could claim
that my COD4 server has "GIGABIT CONNECTIVITY", as it is connected to
the gig-e switch.... that does not mean that traffic coming out of my
server to the outside world is anywhere near gig speeds.

Even if your provider has multi-gig connections to the outside world,
consider how many other people they have sold "100mbit" connections to?

It doesn't take many people cranking full 100mbit flows to flood a gig
network... See if you can get your provider to give you their
oversubscribe numbers.  How many 100mbit connections are they selling on
that 10gig interconnect?  Does it look possible?

Then, you have to consider transit latency.  Even if your provider has
multi-gig connections to their provider, think about where the flows
pass over exchange points.  When I look at the output of traceroute, I
see a couple of places that it is obvious that network traffic is
hitting some sort of roadblock.

From a couple of traceroutes:

  5  tran-01-so-3-0-0-0.chrl.twtelecom.net (66.192.242.83)  11.216 ms
15.932 ms  12.966 ms
 6  sl-gw25-atl-11-0.sprintlink.net (144.223.47.109)  43.524 ms  78.588
ms  79.817 ms

----

 5  66.192.240.22 (66.192.240.22)  12.108 ms  12.603 ms  11.341 ms
 6  equinix.ash.cw.net (206.223.115.73)  22.974 ms  22.492 ms  21.183 ms
 7  so-7-0-0-dcr2.amd.cw.net (195.2.10.250)  114.699 ms  112.953 ms
110.524 ms
 8  so-4-0-0-ycr2.skt.cw.net (206.24.147.198)  130.159 ms

----

 4  66-194-17-105.static.twtelecom.net (66.194.17.105)  4.379 ms  5.681
ms  3.796 ms
 5  66.192.251.27 (66.192.251.27)  65.738 ms  65.757 ms  65.204 ms
 6  * * *
 7  58.229.14.41 (58.229.14.41)  221.330 ms  220.193 ms  220.977 ms
 8  58.229.12.30 (58.229.12.30)  224.661 ms  221.868 ms  216.257 ms

So, from these few examples, you can see that network latency is
introduced in places 2,3,5,10 hops away from you that neither you nor
your provider have any control over, nor hopes of fixing.

Now, what I came here to say:   YOU CAN'T ASK THE QUESTION "HOW MANY
PLAYERS CAN I SUPPORT" AND EXPECT A REALISTIC ANSWER, assuming that you
are talking about player experience, or people playing on a LAN.

BTW, I work for Internet Systems Consortium (www.isc.org) on the BIND
and DHCP training and support team.  We get questions all the time
asking "how big a server do I need to serve X number of zones and to
support Y number of recursive clients... I CAN'T ANSWER THAT QUESTION
EITHER, and for mostly the same reasons.

Thanks for your time and patience in reading this entire e-mail.

{and if you've actually read this far, please quit asking about sizing
servers, K? THX!}

AlanC

-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: signature.asc
Type: application/pgp-signature
Size: 250 bytes
Desc: OpenPGP digital signature
URL: <http://icculus.org/pipermail/cod/attachments/20071206/c9586ee7/attachment.pgp>