A big thing is happening at Infinite Metaverse Alliance! After weeks of work checking out what was available and what we needed, IMA has ordered our first dedicated server. Myron Curtis, Bob Curtice, Lisa Laxton, and Steve LaVigne worked together on this project and came up with what we think is an excellent machine. Buying this server was made possible by a generous investment from Selby Evans of Virtual Outworlding. (https://virtualoutworlding.blogspot.com/)
Being that IMA is a research and development company, quite a bit of research went into this. We studied what was available and then after multiple spreadsheets and a whole pile of decisions and suppositions came up with the server we ordered. Here are some of the details about the server and installation planned:
48 Hyper-threaded Cores
256GB RAM
100Mbps Unmetered Bandwidth - Burstable to 1000Mbps
Internet Backbone connection in a Tier III data center
Yes the list is a lot of tech stuff! To boil it down we got a really heavy duty server to run the IMA grids on! There is lots of power there to do what we need to do really well. This server will be hosting several test grids including an OpenSim grid, a Halcyon grid, a WhiteCore grid, and an Arriba grid. It will also host the IMA grid and the Expo grid along with a couple of other things including our Webcom service for IMA Members.
What this means for IMA Members is that there will be test grids to use in testing their scripts and other code on several different platforms. Our Research and Development Working Groups will have a good place to test and develop their projects in a good, fast, stable environment and compare results with the least number of variables. This will also give IMA a place to research how the different platforms react to different load levels and give us the information to make decisions on server design for the future. We hope the end result will be an optimized server hosting platform that will be fast, stable, and secure.
At IMA we are very excited about this! Now we have the perfect platform to start creating the next generation of Virtual Worlds together!
Steve LaVigne
CFO Infinite Metaverse Alliance