Possibility for DLS in the peer cloud?

[tgp1994]

Hi everyone,

As I'm here downloading UMR WINTER to get in the holiday mood, I start to wonder if anything can be done about Auran's bandwidth problems...

What if DLS content was in the cloud? Like a peer to peer network?

This would cut operating costs for Auran, increase redundancy, and increase transfer speeds!

Right off the bat, I know there may be one concern: Intellectual Property / unwanted distribution of content. But I think that could be fixed several ways: Auran hosts their own tracker and only allows an IP associated with a registered user account, and DHT is turned off for each download. So content would effectively be distributed via torrents instead of the actual content its self. That way, it wouldn't be any worse than someone downloading an object off of the DLS an throwing it back up on the internet somewhere.

Another issue is, of course, starting the initial seed. But the DLS could be the seed its self, with the same data cap even. People connect, start downloading parts of the files, and then the sharing (+speed) increases exponentially.

What about the man hours of writing, testing, and maintaining this new software/service? True, there is that. I would hope that, since this would be using an open protocol that is already widely used, the implementation wouldn't be much of a hassle. I can see it either as only server-side work, in the form of configuring the DLS to distribute .torrent files for each piece of content, that the end user downloads with their choice of a torrent client. Or, a slightly longer option would be integrating the protocol its self into the Content Manager, but that would certainly be doable.

And the first class tickets? Wouldn't revenue be lost from users opting for this new method? Sadly, I would imagine so. But on the flip side, this should reduce costs for Auran, so much to the point I'm hoping that the loss would be negligible.

I think this would be awesome to see, and implementing this on such a scale for one company would be unheard of. What do you guys think?

Happy holidays!

 

[oknotsen]

I start to wonder if anything can be done about Auran's bandwidth problems...

What are those problems? I just downloaded 800mb of content with about 250kb/sec. With a FCT you are only limited by what your ISP is doing to you.

 

[tgp1994]

What are those problems? I just downloaded 800mb of content with about 250kb/sec. With a FCT you are only limited by what your ISP is doing to you.

Maybe they weren't problems perse, but I remember there being some sort of explanation for the 5-6kb/s - 100MB cap, perhaps to mitigate congestion.

 

[johnwhelan]

One trouble with peer to peer is version updates. Having a single database with a single upload procedure and point of downloading is much more useful. The 100Mb cap and sped of downloading are simply the limitations of the free downloading side of the DLS.

Actually getting peer to peer to work over Linksys routers is a problem and they are very common. Downloading isn't a problem but setting up the firewalls to be able to upload is much more problematical. Then you run into machine performance and availability. Trainz tends to use 100% of a dual core cpu when its running that doesn't leave much for peer to peer unless you don't mind slower frame rates. How would you handle the size of the peer to peer file? I have 150 gigs of downloaded assets. Would some one need to download all 150 gigs before they could extract what they wanted? There are management problems in here as well.

It sounds as if you're young, get someone to buy you a life time FCT for Christmas that should solve your problems.

Cheerio John

 

[JCitron]

Maybe they weren't problems perse, but I remember there being some sort of explanation for the 5-6kb/s - 100MB cap, perhaps to mitigate congestion.

The only people that have this issue are those that do not have a First Class Ticket which costs about $24.00 at the most when not on sale.

In the end the service has to be paid for no matter where it's located whether that is on N3V's Download Station FTP server, or somewhere in the cloud. Are you going to foot the bill for the terabytes or more of data that will be stored up on the cloud server? The access to the DLS is pretty reliable. Yes, there have been a few outages, but they really are far and few between. Do you want that on your shoulders too, particularly if the cloud supplier decides they no longer want to be in that market anymore?

What about user login security? The Planet Auran login is held separate from the DLS. In your case, the login and the data would be hosted on the same server, unless of course you want to pay for the extra security level.

These are just a few of questions to think about. This is a lot bigger than it meets the eye.

John

 

[clam1952]

No thank you. Just downloaded at 700k and that's on a 3G connection.
What about those of us with a life time FCT, you going to refund us? Torrents, yes well if you have unlimited bandwidth, many of us are on data caps so uploading torrents is out of the question. By the way the Cloud is a fancy name for a server, nothing magical they all have to be paid for. Anything on a server is in the Cloud, who thought of that stupid name anyway? You can keep your P2P, been there done it far easier and quicker in 90% of cases to just download than wait for hours for someone to start seeding and you don't have to use some malware infected P2P or torrent program. Soon as you start sharing torrents that's it the DLS is in Warez land.

 

[tgp1994]

One trouble with peer to peer is version updates. Having a single database with a single upload procedure and point of downloading is much more useful. The 100Mb cap and sped of downloading are simply the limitations of the free downloading side of the DLS.

Ah, shoot... That's true, you would never know when the content would be out of date. I suppose that would have to mean integrating the P2P functionality into the Content Manager so it would know when to switch over.

Actually getting peer to peer to work over Linksys routers is a problem and they are very common. Downloading isn't a problem but setting up the firewalls to be able to upload is much more problematical.

Also true, talking about firewalls, those could get problematic. It's more widespread through all routers though, right? Although, I think a lot of them are using UPnP which should streamline the process.

Then you run into machine performance and availability. Trainz tends to use 100% of a dual core cpu when its running that doesn't leave much for peer to peer unless you don't mind slower frame rates.

You're right, Trainz does eat up a lot of processing power. Despite that, I think windows does a fairly good job of handling multiple processes competing for resources (at that, I don't think utilizing the torrent protocol would do much), so I don't feel that the slowdown would very noticeable. I would guess, maybe 2-4FPS?

How would you handle the size of the peer to peer file? I have 150 gigs of downloaded assets. Would some one need to download all 150 gigs before they could extract what they wanted?

No, no, I'm saying each asset would be a torrent. So you would have 150 gigs of assets, each managed individually. And dang, that's a lot of content

It sounds as if you're young, get someone to buy you a life time FCT for Christmas that should solve your problems.

Cheerio John

Yes, young and paying for college... I just thought I'd throw the idea out there.

The only people that have this issue are those that do not have a First Class Ticket which costs about $24.00 at the most when not on sale.

Naturally

In the end the service has to be paid for no matter where it's located whether that is on N3V's Download Station FTP server, or somewhere in the cloud. Are you going to foot the bill for the terabytes or more of data that will be stored up on the cloud server? The access to the DLS is pretty reliable. Yes, there have been a few outages, but they really are far and few between. Do you want that on your shoulders too, particularly if the cloud supplier decides they no longer want to be in that market anymore?

I had a bad feeling the wrong idea might be gotten if I used the word cloud... I didn't mean Auran switching over to a cloud service, I was more imagining a "cloud of trainz users" connected and downloading from each other.

What about user login security? The Planet Auran login is held separate from the DLS. In your case, the login and the data would be hosted on the same server, unless of course you want to pay for the extra security level.

Well, I was thinking that access control would be handled by the tracker, and then by the torrents not utilizing DHT.

These are just a few of questions to think about. This is a lot bigger than it meets the eye.

No doubt, I really don't know what would go into making this happen.

No thank you. Just downloaded at 700k and that's on a 3G connection.
What about those of us with a life time FCT, you going to refund us?

That's a very good point, I wouldn't know how to approach that.

Torrents, yes well if you have unlimited bandwidth, many of us are on data caps so uploading torrents is out of the question.

Torrents or plain DLS content, it's all going to eat up your data. Granted, uploading would be involved in that data eating process, but I'm not saying that being a peer would be a requirement for those on a tight leash with their ISP.

By the way the Cloud is a fancy name for a server, nothing magical they all have to be paid for.

I know, bad terminology on my part.

Anything on a server is in the Cloud, who thought of that stupid name anyway?

Probably a marketing team

far easier and quicker in 90% of cases to just download than wait for hours for someone to start seeding

But, see, the DLS would be a seed in the swarm to help get it started. I can imagine a system where, once there are a sufficient number of peers in the swarm, the DLS server seeding it could drop out until required. And it wouldn't have to upload at a very fast speed, either. I think swarm is where I got the "cloud" name idea from.

and you don't have to use some malware infected P2P or torrent program. Soon as you start sharing torrents that's it the DLS is in Warez land.

But that would be the beauty of Auran hosting it's own tracker and distributing the torrent files. Auran controls what goes into the torrent, and where it goes. And, they would have just about as strong a grip on the content in that scenario as it does presently. Once that file is downloaded, it's free game, no matter where it came from.

I think you guys are right though, there just seem to be too many logistical nightmares involved in this.

 

[sparky15]

Do you really think N3V is going to sacrifice life cycle policies, DLS access based on which version you buy and first class tickets to the cloud? Big money loss to them over content they didn't drop a dime to create.