Wednesday, February 24, 2016

Failed WIS Check?

Scenario:  You have your 10th anniversary coming up; something you've been planning all year.  It happens to fall in late February/early March, but what you have planned will last "probably through March".  You also have to move, something which has also been in planning for about a year, but does not seem to be overly-critical as to "when" it must occur.  Pop-quiz, hot-shot:  What do you do?

DM:  "Roll a WIS check."
Player: *shaken dice sound, followed by rolling sound* "It's a one."
DM:  "Hmmm...'Critical Fail'...guess you decide to move during the early parts of your month-long anniversary event."

Sound ridiculous?  Does to me, and yet apparently, that is exactly what Turbine/DDO has decided to do.

We've known for some time that Turbine is moving from their current data center, to another (brand new? and shiny?) data center in " 'Joyzee" and now that LotRO is (more-or-less) 'settled-in', DDO is to follow suit.  What we don't know is "exactly when" the move is to occur.  We still don't know "exactly" when, but in last Friday's live Twitch show - and again in the fora (sorry, "forums") today, it was said:

"We are currently targeting the first half of March for the data center move, although a more specific ETA will have to wait until we're ready to announce it."

OK.  By itself, not a big deal.  However, we all know that February 28, 2016 is DDO's 10-year anniversary.  It's been talked about in blogs, on the fora (sorry,  "forums"), Twitter, Facebook, etc., etc.  And the festivities begin this Friday (Woohoo!)!  Of course, one of the most-often* asked questions is:  "How long will the event last?", to which the response has been:

"...[T]entatively through at least March."

Alright!  A month-long (or possibly longer) event!  Woooo...wait...

Yep - the data move is 'tentatively' scheduled to occur roughly in the middle(-ish) of the anniversary event.

Now, I like Turbine (and DDO) - I really do.  But seriously?  Didn't you guys learn from the data center move of LotRO that data center moves rarely go-off without a hitch, no matter how much you plan?  I've personally been involved in a several server migrations** for my company and none of them - NONE OF THEM - were done during business hours; all were started on a Saturday***, "just in case" something went not quite according to plan, and we needed Sunday to "fix" things.

Guess how many times we were working on Sunday (and often late into the evening on Sunday)?  Hint: I refer you to the 3rd sentence of the last paragraph.

Which begs me to ask the question:  Did no one at DDO say, "Um...maybe that's not such a good idea..."?  Or, "Perhaps we should wait until after the anniversary event for the data center move?"

Obviously, I think this is a bad idea.  A bad, bad, BAD idea.

I hope they re-think things and put off the data center move until after the anniversary event is done.  Of course maybe - just maybe - they'll defy the odds and actually have a smooth data center transition, with absolutely no issues what-so-ever.  But I'm not holding my breath.  And if they do decide to continue down this bad idea highway, I will hope for the best.  And should something bad happen, I promise I won't say "I told you so."

_____
* OK, OK - maybe actually "that" often, but I did see it asked a few times...at least twice.

** Not quite the same as a data center move, but many of the same principles apply.

*** Or possibly even Friday, after 5 PM.


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