Here's a question

"While we did experience some problems with the asset server this past
weekend (which were fixed on Monday), our database load is currently
running very close to zero and we feel we can handle the increasing
number of Residents on the grid." - Jesse Linden

Is the database load so low just because of recent improvements? Did our voluntary inventory cleanups help at all? How much of this effect is due to the involuntary deletions of people's items over the past few months? Is any percentage of it the result of some of the power players no longer logging into The Grid because they can't tolerate The Lag?

Is anybody at Linden Lab crunching these numbers? Or does that seem too much like market research to be worth the effort?

It's not possible to generate exact numbers for what change helped how much, but the vast majority the improvment is due to internal changes we've made in the past couple of releases. We have a wide variety of avenues for scaling our database systems - we ran into trouble because we didn't get some of them done soon enough. The goal at this point is to stay well ahead of the curve.

Honestly I don't think that voluntary clean ups had any measurable effect - the inventory database is growing fast enough that we never saw a reduction in the number of items (currently there are about 43 million). Nonetheless, I'd expect people who did clean up to have quicker logins and more responsive inventories, at least.

The cases where people have complained of lost inventory, even taken as all 100% true and un-exaggerated, would have no measurable impact. Likewise, I'm not sure how you define "power player", but we have alot more people with big inventories, spending more time in-world, than ever before.

Sorry even before I read Ian's reply the phrase 'power player' knda got my attention. What exactly IS a power player?

Sorry but even before I read Ian's reply I was a tad surprised by the phrase 'power player'.

What exactly IS a power player? Do tell.

Thanks for the reply Ian. It seems as though y'all have considered all these things and it's good to hear some assurance that The Asset System is finally implemented as a fully scalable platform so that our days of inventory loss and teleportation delays are ended. Forty-three million items staggers my mind. I have though noticed a vast improvement in my own performance after clearing out masses of old and forgotten inventory. You're very right about that. It's about time for me to sweep it again.

Nyx, in context, a power player is someone who regularly places a heavy load on The Asset System. A power player issues frequent teleport requests wearing multiple attachments, steadily takes and rezzes objects, and rat packs their inventory with hundreds of thousands of unique items. They've no concern at all for their effect on a sim or the frame rates of the people around them much less The Grid at large.

They complain incessently yet won't be told that they can help themselves. It's all LL's fault and if it's not fixed by tomorrow they're going to leave and never come back. Or maybe they'll stay another day or two or three or twenty. Go figure.