Derek Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 This thread is geared towards more of the medum+ size providers, that do not use auto setup for there game servers. So when you have multiple and multiple boxes in each location , how do you determine when a new order comes in where to place that game server, I can't imagine each of your staff member goes through how many servers are on each box or how many resources on each box, so what kind of system do you have in place ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimitrifrom31 Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 Idk when you start considering a GSP as medium, I consider myself as small and got about 90 Game Servers running. I started doing the stuffs manually, checking first average CPU usage in reports. Then I picked up a machine, checked the CPU usage of that particular one for the last 10-15 days before installing the game server on. Altho I love automated stuffs and I got bored by the manual method after my first 30 customers. I now use automated setup with ClientExec, its based on TCA average CPU usage installing the servers in a round robin manner ignoring the machines where the Average CPU during peak hours is above 40%. So basically its doing almost the same job as I was doing manually, saving my time for only 15$ / month. Of course I still keep an eye on it cuz for exemple with ArmA2 servers I gota make sure I never got more than 2-3 instances running on the same machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 Idk when you start considering a GSP as medium, I consider myself as small and got about 90 Game Servers running. I started doing the stuffs manually, checking first average CPU usage in reports. Then I picked up a machine, checked the CPU usage of that particular one for the last 10-15 days before installing the game server on. Altho I love automated stuffs and I got bored by the manual method after my first 30 customers. I now use automated setup with ClientExec, its based on TCA average CPU usage installing the servers in a round robin manner ignoring the machines where the Average CPU during peak hours is above 40%. So basically its doing almost the same job as I was doing manually, saving my time for only 15$ / month. Of course I still keep an eye on it cuz for exemple with ArmA2 servers I gota make sure I never got more than 2-3 instances running on the same machine. I understand but this thread really applies to thoughs that don't use automation and have 4+ staff members. I also say a medium sized GSP is one with ~300 clients althugh that may be a little high. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 I'm your perfect example then. We use the average CPU usage report, most of the time its a comparison between CPU usage and the amount of services installed. Most of our machines run between 10 and 20% during peak hours and we usually pick the machine that is running <10%. We just switched out all of our hardware from Single Quads to Dual Quads which has opened up a lot of space per machine. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 I'm your perfect example then. We use the average CPU usage report, most of the time its a comparison between CPU usage and the amount of services installed. Most of our machines run between 10 and 20% during peak hours and we usually pick the machine that is running <10%. We just switched out all of our hardware from Single Quads to Dual Quads which has opened up a lot of space per machine. How do you make money selling servers at $1 / slot and only putting 20-10% resources per box... Anyways, I prefer not to use that method as it doesn't seem "proper" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 How do you make money selling servers at $1 / slot and only putting 20-10% resources per box... We could also question how I do it on Internap and Peer1 bandwidth Anyways, I prefer not to use that method as it doesn't seem "proper" How is that not "proper"? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 We could also question how I do it on Internap and Peer1 bandwidth How is that not "proper"? I can tell you now, it's not possible to make "real" money selling @ $1 / Slot and only using 10-20% resources at peak time or at least money that makes make me still want to run a game server provider. It seems silly you make your staff go through each box to check the resources each time, unless you have 1-2 boxes in each location were it is simple Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse Posted August 29, 2009 Share Posted August 29, 2009 I can tell you now, it's not possible to make "real" money selling @ $1 / Slot and only using 10-20% resources at peak time or at least money that makes make me still want to run a game server provider. I wouldn't do it if it didn't make good money either. It seems silly you make your staff go through each box to check the resources each time, unless you have 1-2 boxes in each location were it is simple It's a big chart that displays each server per line with services installed, CPU during peak hours, memory usage etc.? It's the report under "Server Performance Stats" Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 29, 2009 Author Share Posted August 29, 2009 I wouldn't do it if it didn't make good money either. It's a big chart that displays each server per line with services installed, CPU during peak hours, memory usage etc.? It's the report under "Server Performance Stats" We don't use TCAdmin reports as we use a more advanced system. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
swish Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 I dont see why any medium sized company with 200~+ client would be using manual setup. We use auto setup partnered with load balancing....saves a bunch of time. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 31, 2009 Author Share Posted August 31, 2009 I dont see why any medium sized company with 200~+ client would be using manual setup. We use auto setup partnered with load balancing....saves a bunch of time. First one that comes to my mind "Velocity Servers" which is a large N/A GSP as well as Defcon Servers. Many Many reasons to do manual setups , if you are a mediuim / large gsp you should have the staff to be able to setup the servers , if you are small then you should have no problem setting up a server every few days. Anyways thats my 2 cents. PS. Swish, why is Jon B. no longer with you guys ? Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimitrifrom31 Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 I dont see why any medium sized company with 200~+ client would be using manual setup. We use auto setup partnered with load balancing....saves a bunch of time. even with 100 clients I cant imagine doing that manually, its a boring stuff that works flawless when automated so why bothering doing it manually. You may have had a bad experience with it but i recommend you to try again. As for how I used to do when i was doing the manual job gave it in my first post. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 31, 2009 Author Share Posted August 31, 2009 even with 100 clients I cant imagine doing that manually, its a boring stuff that works flawless when automated so why bothering doing it manually. You may have had a bad experience with it but i recommend you to try again. As for how I used to do when i was doing the manual job gave it in my first post. If you only have 100 clients , I bet you are only getting a few sales a week. You are telling me you can't setup a few servers a week that takes about 5 minutes at most to setup. Seems lazy to me and no concern for performance and relying on an automated service. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
KOhosting Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 It has absolutely nothing to do with the number of clients. Why on earth would you want to work more? I personally prefer to work smarter and not harder. I only have 3 staff members aside from myself and I certainly don't want them using their time to do installs when I have software(CE and TCA) that do it automatically without incident. I only have 60 clients and that is my 2 cents. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 31, 2009 Author Share Posted August 31, 2009 You guys clearly don't get it and didn't read my intial post about not wanting to hear from people that use instant setup. I guess I will let the big boys chime in as I know almost all of them use tcadmin use manual setup for good reasons. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dan M Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 We regularly monitor average CPU and memory performance on each machine. These are noted in our billing system notes on a two-day basis so we can setup servers on the correct node. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 31, 2009 Author Share Posted August 31, 2009 We regularly monitor average CPU and memory performance on each machine. These are noted in our billing system notes on a two-day basis so we can setup servers on the correct node. Thank you that is exactly what I am looking for. More examples peeps! Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Jesse Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 Everyone on our team gets text notifications of New Orders, New Tickets, Updated Tickets, and Closing Tickets. This is set-up through e-mail forwarders and Hotmail SMS Notifications. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted August 31, 2009 Author Share Posted August 31, 2009 Everyone on our team gets text notifications of New Orders, New Tickets, Updated Tickets, and Closing Tickets. This is set-up through e-mail forwarders and Hotmail SMS Notifications. What does that got to do with this whole thread. /smacks Jesse. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
proclan Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 It has absolutely nothing to do with the number of clients. Why on earth would you want to work more? I personally prefer to work smarter and not harder. I only have 3 staff members aside from myself and I certainly don't want them using their time to do installs when I have software(CE and TCA) that do it automatically without incident. I only have 60 clients and that is my 2 cents. That's correct smarter not harder. Why would you pay staff to manually set up game servers if it can be automated. The GSP industry is so cut throat as it is until your established and been around awhile. Having WHMCS and TCA set up to automate your sales and do it correctly was our main goal when we got back into game servers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ECF Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 Fraud would be one of the reasons that pops to my head whe it comes to automated setup. Numerous fraudulent orders in a short period of time will raise red flags with both Paypal and your merchant account provider and/or bank. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
dimitrifrom31 Posted August 31, 2009 Share Posted August 31, 2009 Well its not about being lazy or whatever, I used to do it manually as mentionned, I was checking each server CPU/RAm usage and the average one over last 30 days during peak times before creating a new one. Altho once I started using ClientExec I also tried the automated method and that does exactly the same job, im not lazy but why would i do something that can be done automatically? For the same reasons I use a washing machine instead of washing clothes manually And its just my piece of advice, I now have it automated and what I do manually is a daily check of server CPU/Ram usage during the previous day to make sure nothing went wrong, I also of course got notification at new clients signup and I check that their servers are properly created and running fine. Having a small part of the job automated doesnt mean I dont do manually checking but since I automated that part I can guarantee you I never had any problem and when I see a server could start getting loaded too much I remove it from auto signup cuz the TCA autobalancing do the maths over the past 30 days and if you get 10 orders in a couple of days it may go wrong even more if thats about games such as Arma. back to the point, I guess im doing like GSP who do it manually only difference is that I dont create the server myself; I let it be created in a round robin maner on the machiens enabled for auto signup. In conrete it makes no difference, just saves me a few mins and delivers a server faster and at anytime to the new customers. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougK94 Posted September 1, 2009 Share Posted September 1, 2009 For a few years, I have had completely automated setup for voice servers. For game servers, I manually approve new customers, then the servers are auto created. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Derek Posted September 2, 2009 Author Share Posted September 2, 2009 For a few years, I have had completely automated setup for voice servers. For game servers, I manually approve new customers, then the servers are auto created. Fair enough, although seems to defeat the person of auto setup Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
DougK94 Posted September 2, 2009 Share Posted September 2, 2009 Fair enough, although seems to defeat the person of auto setup Not really, I check them for fraud and then allow the game servers to be set up automatically. As a result, in 7 1/2 years of business, ZERO chargebacks Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Recommended Posts
Archived
This topic is now archived and is closed to further replies.