bwin in Hagenberg

Those who’ve watched The Big Lebowski will remember Walter (played by John Goodman). Actually, Thomas H. Grohser, Senior Database Engineer at bwin looks something like Walter, what I really appreciated.

Here are some facts about the bwin databases:

• 2000 bets per second
• 400 webserver
• largest DB: 5 TB
• total data: 100 TB
• 450.000 queries per second
• 170 different applications, >= 1 new release per day

Sounds impressive, doesn’t it? bwin has a mission, numbers are priority:

1. zero data loss
2. availability of 99.99 %
3. 450.000 queries per second (with that, they’re worlds’ # 2)

Since foundation, they didn’t loose a single row, that’s for almost 10 years now. bwin can go back to every particular state, within the last seven years. In fact, availability is between 99.992 and 99.993, which means about three to five hours downtime per year, where two hours are planned and used for maintenance and updates.

How to achieve that? Standards, massiv redundancy and “Work by the book” are key factors. Every server has the same hardware. And if there appears any error on administrators’ eight wide-screen TFTs, there are strict orders what to do. Of course administrators are redundant too, it’s almost like on an air plane.

bwin does backups, constantly. They have two data centers, each connected with two first tier suppliers, each providing two 2-Mbit lines. The datacenter are constantly exchanging backup data and transition logs.

Between their datacenters, bits are pushed through with 16 GB(yte) per second. Some more top server (Itanium 64) features:

• 32 CPUs and 64 cores
• 64 GB of memory (storing bets from the last two to three days)
• 64 network cards (requests are split per country, each country has a specific NW card)

Impressive facts. Thanks for the speech, I really enjoyed it.

Wakeboarding!

A few weeks ago, a few people completing Communication and Knowledge Media (and the former study path Computer Based Learning) got together and had a good time at the Feldkirchner Seen. As I’ve read in an internal University forum, there’s an ongoing collapse competition looking for the best wakeboard collapse. So I’d like to hand in my favourite and some other nice shots. We tried well, most of us for the first time.

Kneeboarding is quite easy, and so Wakeboarding is, as long as you got it right in the starting phase: strain your arm muscles, try to keep the upper half of the board above the water, then prepare for the lift wire tension and expect everything to happen very fast now. As soon as you are something-like on the water, keep your butt strained and your hips to the front, and there you go

Markus Kurtz – Gleisdorf, Linz, Los Angeles

Yesterday students in Hagenberg had the opportunity to listen to Markus Kurtz, Computer Graphics Supervisor at Rythm & Hues. Markus did some impressive stuff in the past, including work for Titanic (1997), The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring (2001) and Superman Returns (2006).

In his first speech, he highlighted key points in his career. He started with University in Linz, and was offered the chance to participate in an experimental Computer Graphics student task force. Markus agreed, the years went on and so the task force volunteers did. Starting with about 20 people, only a hand full was left. But Markus was already into the CG stuff, and finished his Diploma. Subsequently, he was offered several jobs, and soon moved to Los Angeles.

In the second part of his first speech, Markus pointed out several issues around movie making in Hollywood. Obviously, it’s really hard to get hired as a Script Writer. There are a lot of Script Writers, and almost a half is unemployed. It’s hard to get your own script to a person, who decides. Moreover, the script itself has to have a certain weight and amount of pages, otherwise there’s a good chance that Managers don’t even read your script, they just say “too heavy” and throw it into the trash can. The main film Studios in America are hold by only a few very large companies. That’s the reason why all Hollywood films look and taste almost the same, it’s the same person deciding.

After a break, in the second speech Markus talked about the general workflow in a CG studio. He highlighted each phase, which was kind of linear connected to other phases. Nevertheless, in the end Markus pointed out, that in fact there’s no linear process anymore. It’s all crossed over, every phase has to react when another changes. Therefore, digital asset management is an important thing to have.

Both speeches were really interesting, the lecture hall was filled with students. To descibe my impression, I would say: Markus took every chance he was offered and which enabled him to personally and technically grow. He seems to be a great guy, high-flyer and still down to earth. Definitely a person to learn from.

Almost everything prepared

Beeing lazy last months, I’ll now comment on the status quo. About a month ago, the visa arrived I had to send a lot of paperwork to the Australien Embassy in Vienna, and after ten days, my passport arrived back in Linz, together with a bill. Visa costs 130 € and is going to be directly charged via credit card.

Right after the arrival of the visa I contacted my supervisor in Australia, to manage the best possible flight. I’d love to stay in Sydney for a week, so I’m going to leave from Vienna on 13th of August (Wednesday) and arrive in Sydney Friday morning. I hope to find a couch to sleep on via the Couchsurfing Project, but there are still two months left to do couch requests.

In addition, my landlord in Australia surprised me very positively with a quite larger room (Room 1) to be able to stay at, and there are no extra costs (about 16m² compared to 11m²). And: There’ll be a cooler inside the room.

Until 11th of July I’ll be very busy with University, so check back then.

Great times now, great times to come!

University website down?

Currently www.fh-ooe.at is down. Doesn’t really change my opinion of Typo3 for the better…