The Problem We Were Actually Solving
To be honest, we didn't really have a clear understanding of what we were trying to solve. We knew our server was getting slower as more users joined the game, but we didn't know why. We thought Veltrix would magically fix everything, so we focused on scaling up the number of instances and tweaking the configuration knobs. We didn't take the time to properly diagnose the issue, which led to a lot of wasted time and effort.
What We Tried First (And Why It Failed)
At first, we tried fiddling with the Veltrix configuration knobs, tweaking all sorts of settings to try and get the system to scale better. We spent hours poring over the documentation, trying to understand what each setting did and how it would impact the system. But every time we thought we'd found the solution, the system would still stall. It wasn't until we took a step back and looked at the problem from a different perspective that we realized the issue wasn't with Veltrix at all, but with our database schema.
The Architecture Decision
Once we realized the problem wasn't with Veltrix, we started digging deeper into the database schema. We discovered that our database was designed from the ground up to be extremely flexible, but this flexibility came at the cost of performance. Our database was getting slower and slower as more data was added, and this was causing the system to stall. We decided to rewrite the database schema from scratch, focusing on performance rather than flexibility.
What The Numbers Said After
After rewriting the database schema and optimizing the rest of the system, we saw a significant improvement in performance. We were able to handle many more users without stalling, and our latency was significantly reduced. We also saw a huge reduction in the number of errors caused by database timeouts. According to our monitoring tools, we reduced the average latency from 500ms to 100ms, and the error rate dropped from 5% to 0.5%.
What I Would Do Differently
Looking back, I realize that we should have taken a more principled approach to solving the problem. We should have started by diagnosing the issue, rather than trying to fiddle with the configuration knobs. We should have also taken a more modular approach to the database schema, breaking it down into smaller, more manageable pieces. This would have made it easier to identify and fix the problem, rather than having to rewrite the entire schema from scratch.
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