Shutdown of SYD-1 Australia Server

[Daniel Mckee]

I have searched for some notice of the permanent shutdown of our server and cannot find any. If this is so then it shows quite some lack of respect for Australian members. If timely advice was given then I retract my remarks. However if no notice was given then I would appreciate an explanation from the Board please.

[Richard Quigley]

I'm feeling the same sense of frustration at the lack of response.

Surely some one in "officialdom" would have the courtesy of replying to the queries that I know have been made.

If only to say that they don't know what is happening.

[Matthew Cianfarani]

7 hours ago, Richard Quigley said:

 

Surely some one in "officialdom" would have the courtesy of replying to the queries that I know have been made.

Hi Richard!

I've replied to every one of the emails that I have been sent.. and believe me, there were a few!

Stay tuned for a more formal announcement from VATSIM over the coming days regarding some large-scale infrastructure changes that are in progress.

Cheers!

[Sean Harrison]

Surely shutting down a server is something that would be discussed with those affected before it happens.  It may seem inconsequential to someone in another region, but pings from servers other than SYD-1 are terrible.  Either people are training to be politicians or there is cloak and dagger stuff going on.

This will effectively disenfranchise a significant number of members.

[Brant Marshall]

1 hour ago, Sean Harrison said:

Surely shutting down a server is something that would be discussed with those affected before it happens.  It may seem inconsequential to someone in another region, but pings from servers other than SYD-1 are terrible.  Either people are training to be politicians or there is cloak and dagger stuff going on.

This will effectively disenfranchise a significant number of members.

Hey Sean,

Understandable that you're concerned, however Matthew did state that a more formal announcement about some significant infrastructure changes will be coming soon. Give it some time for them to make the announcement and hopefully that will address the concerns you have.

[Andreas Fuchs]

I thought that with the new server structure that we have had in place since the change last year, it was less relevant WHAT server members would use, as they were synchronized in such a way, that it doesn't matter anymore whether your ping was 20ms or 200ms.

[Richard McDonald Woods]

Blimey, I think it's getting cloudy😄

[Daniel Mckee]

"Stay tuned for a more formal announcement from VATSIM over the coming days regarding some large-scale infrastructure changes that are in progress". Matthew you have obviously missed the point. There has not even been an informal announcement! You say you have replied to all emails received; what  BOG should have done was given some timely notice before shutting down the server AND instead of replying to emails BOG should have made a public announcement in the forum  Very poor effort mate!!

And Andreas my friend, be honest, what would you have been saying if Germany Server was shutdown without notice?

Edited April 29, 2020 at 09:53 AM by Daniel Mckee

[Callum Strawbridge]

59 minutes ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

20ms or 200ms.

Unfortunately, several members from Australia and New Zealand are looking at pings in excess of 1000 for any other server. This is due to the rural locations of many members as well as the outdated and downright terrible infrastructure within Australia/NZ. 

 

While I couldn't comment on whether latency would affect these members though I would expect it wouldn't based on comments from those in the infrastructure team, there are reports of people being unable to establish a stable connection to other servers due to the high latency (Thanks Australian Internet 😛 ). 

[Andreas Fuchs]

1 hour ago, Daniel Mckee said:

And Andreas my friend, be honest, what would you have been saying if Germany Server was shutdown without notice?

I couldn't care less, I would have used another one. By default I use "Singapore", I think.

 

36 minutes ago, Callum Strawbridge said:

Unfortunately, several members from Australia and New Zealand are looking at pings in excess of 1000 for any other server. This is due to the rural locations of many members as well as the outdated and downright terrible infrastructure within Australia/NZ.

Oh dear, this is really bad, of course. But then I am asking myself why an Australia-based server would have made a big difference. As signals travel at nearly the speed of light, another 3000kms of travel e.g. to Singapore would equal a delay of a millisecond.

[Robert Shearman Jr]

8 hours ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

As signals travel at nearly the speed of light, another 3000kms of travel e.g. to Singapore would equal a delay of a millisecond.

That kind of presumes there's some sort of direct cable between the SYD-1 and Singapore servers; no relays in between...?

[Sean Harrison]

This was posted on VATPACs Discord platform.  Whilst I haven’t had it this bad, most of the time Singapore is the only one with a couple of greens.

 

[Richard Quigley]

About 5300 K from Adelaide to Singapore and 12800 from Adelaide to San Francisco.

[Richard Quigley]

17 hours ago, Matthew Cianfarani said:

Hi Richard!

I've replied to every one of the emails that I have been sent.. and believe me, there were a few!

Stay tuned for a more formal announcement from VATSIM over the coming days regarding some large-scale infrastructure changes that are in progress.

Cheers!

Matt,

Thank you for your response.  I appreciate the magic you and your team create for the users of this facility.  I just don't understand why some one last week could not have said:

"Please be aware that there are going to be some major changes made to the VATSIM infrastructure.  Some strange things may appear to be happening.  Some changes will be permanent, others will not.  A formal announcement will be made when we figure out what is happening, no scratch that!😘  When we can fully document these changes and be assured that they will work to he benefit of the community."

That having been said we, here in the antipodes, would not have been left feeling that we were given the short end of the stick.

[Kirk Christie]

There is only one voice server, people who are complaining about their pings to other network servers don't have much to say about their connection to the AFV server 🤷‍♂️

[Simon Kelsey]

13 hours ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

But then I am asking myself why an Australia-based server would have made a big difference. As signals travel at nearly the speed of light, another 3000kms of travel e.g. to Singapore would equal a delay of a millisecond.

The problem as I understand it is that particularly in more rural locations in Oz/NZ quite a lot of the time there's a heavy reliance on RF/satellite links etc for large portions of the network. These inherently carry with them not only limited bandwidth but a great deal of latency and instability.

The FSD network runs on the TCP protocol. In very basic terms this is a 'guaranteed delivery' protocol which means that if you send a message the server at the other end needs to wait for and acknowledge that ALL the packets have been received and asks for them again if they don't arrive (kind of like a signed for delivery... you know you're expecting a package, if you're not in the postman takes it away and comes back another day)... you can see how on an unstable satellite connection with lots of packet loss the same message ends up getting sent many times... the latency goes up and up and up and eventually the connection drops.

The advantage of having a more local server in this situation is that with 'less internet' between you and it, you are more likely to at least be able to speak to that server with some degree of reliability and in turn that server has a better chance of being able to relay that to the rest of the network (being more likely to be connected more directly to the internet backbone).

Voice on the other hand works via UDP which is a much less fussy protocol... basically spray out packets and hope for the best so in that way at least it is in theory slightly less vulnerable (more like sticking a stamp on an envelope and hoping for the best - once you've put it in the postbox you forget about it and move on to the next one).

[Sean Harrison]

I obviously not being an educated person, do not find it easier to comprehend this statement:

 These changes will lead not only to an easier sign on process for our users, but also allow for the implementation of faster position updates, leading to a better experience for all!

when the same post says updates have been reduced to every 5 seconds.  How can the reduction of position updates times allow for faster position updates??  Sorry but I don’t understand at all how that is possible.

a server is a hub, it still has to be interlinked with the other servers?  So SYD-1 that we used to contact too, was also interlinked with Singapore.  At least we only used poor lines to something over  a short distance.
 

not trying to be difficult, I simply don’t buy “allow for faster position updates” = reducing the frequency of position updates.

[Simon Kelsey]

32 minutes ago, Sean Harrison said:

the same post says updates have been reduced to every 5 seconds.

I'm not sure it does - it just states that position updates are sent every 5 seconds, no mention of any change.

This (positions being updated once every 5 seconds) has been true since the year dot. Modern pilot clients smooth aircraft movement better than in the old days so you might be fooled in to thinking it's more frequent than that (although the cost of that smoothing is that even more delay is involved, so when you look at an aircraft using vPilot, for instance, you're actually seeing where it was at least 5-10 seconds in the past (because it needs a couple of position updates to be able to calculate the smoothing).

[Daniel Mckee]

Many seem to be missing the whole point of my post. It does not concern server speeds (or whatever) it is about a lack of respect for Australian members and only that.  And Matthew C and Matthew B  both seem to have trouble saying a simple "sorry about the lack of notice" from the BOG. That's all that would be required in answer to my post.😐

Edited April 30, 2020 at 07:18 AM by Daniel Mckee

[Andreas Fuchs]

Ok. Who donated that Aussie server all the years? You? Or somebody else? How can you feel disrespected about something that you never owned or contributed to? How can you ask them to say sorry for upgrading the infrastructure?

I am from Germany, I don't care if our servers are in France, Sweden, Russia, Moldova or at the South Pole. What is a German server of use for me? To make me feel proud of it?

As long as we do not pay fees to use them we have nothing to complain about. I am happy that there's a group of highly motivated people are using up their freetime to bring a better experience to us all, for free, for our enjoyment. Temporary network interruptions happen even in paid services.

 

3 hours ago, Sean Harrison said:

when the same post says updates have been reduced to every 5 seconds.  How can the reduction of position updates times allow for faster position updates??  Sorry but I don’t understand at all how that is possible.

errr??? When you make faster position updates = more updates per time interval. VATSIM has ALWAYS been sending position updates every 5 in 5 seconds only, since the beginning. So far it has not changed, but the frequency of updates will be increased (=fast position updates). Is it really that hard to understand? I thought you were a native speaker.

Edited April 30, 2020 at 08:40 AM by Andreas Fuchs

[Richard Quigley]

You've entirely missed the point Andreas. 

I do not speak officially for either VATPAC or VATNZ but to suggest that either have been in the least ungrateful for the situation in which they found themselves lowers the tone of the discussion and does nothing for the community at large.

Please re-read Dan's post.  I thought he was being unusually clear.😊

 

[Sean Harrison]

24 minutes ago, Andreas Fuchs said:

Is it really that hard to understand? I thought you were a native speaker.

I find your response totally disrespectful Andreas.  1. yes I find it hard to understand, 2. No, I’m not stupid or simple mate.

[Sean Harrison]

2 hours ago, Simon Kelsey said:

This (positions being updated once every 5 seconds) has been true since the year dot.

I accept what you are saying Simon.  That comment was based on something I had read elsewhere that it used to be once every 2 seconds.  If the rate/frequency/or whatever we call it has not ever changed since SATCO/VATSIM then I accept that my opinion was wrong.

[Antony Radley]

I won't dive into a lot of what's going on here, but as a fellow kiwi I think the communications here have been very poor on a subject that actually effects quite a few members. If I remember correctly CTP staff were screaming at everyone to join SYD-1 as it was the only server not overloaded, what will happen next time?
Anyway I think the comm's department need to rethink a strategy on how they approach such things, perhaps more open communication between network and comms is needed? Anyway, Its over now, we can let it go but lets take this as a learning situation and strive to do better and provide better transparency with the members. This is a value VATSIM should hold dere to its heart and strive to achieve everyday. 

[Andreas Fuchs]

4 hours ago, Sean Harrison said:

I find your response totally disrespectful Andreas.  1. yes I find it hard to understand, 2. No, I’m not stupid or simple mate.

Oh dear. Sorry, I am German. Germans usually ask questions directly without smearing honey around people's mouths. We usually do not have a hidden agenda, trying to suggest something by asking questions. A question is a question. What you see is what was meant. Litteraly.

 

Let me ask again to make it compatible with the feelings of some members:

I take it you were earlier referring to this announcement:

 

So, I am having difficulties in understanding why you, or others, are not understanding those two sentences in the above announcement:

Quote

As our current technology only sends position updates across the network once every 5 seconds and voice data is transmitted via an entirely different set of servers, a larger ping value is of no concern to current network operations.
[..]
While change is hard and we love our current FSD servers, this is a necessary step to modernize VATSIM’s network. These changes will lead not only to an easier sign on process for our users, but also allow for the implementation of faster position updates, leading to a better experience for all!

So, please tell me, where Mat's post said that the update rate had been reduced to 5 seconds? And what's ambiguous about "faster position updates"?

Sorry, I am not a native English speaker, but I understood it on the first read and I am trying to understand how native speakers could misunderstand it. There's nothing belittling in my question, at least it was not intended to be.

 

-----------------

4 hours ago, Sean Harrison said:

I accept what you are saying Simon.  That comment was based on something I had read elsewhere that it used to be once every 2 seconds.  If the rate/frequency/or whatever we call it has not ever changed since SATCO/VATSIM then I accept that my opinion was wrong.

Come on, Sean. You have been with VATSIM for how many years? Definitely more than 10 years. Isn't it "public knowledge" that the update rate was and still is 5 seconds and that's why some pilot clients (FsInn!) had an option to connect P2P (peer-to-peer) to other users of the same client to get faster position updates to meaningfully conduct formation flying, for example?

I am honestly surprised, without judging you or others at all. Just surprised.