All Around The Grid

Occasionally I like to discuss some more serious subjects around here, this is one of those time.

I’ve been taking an increasing interest in what Linden Labs has been up to and their “Official Blog.  I will admit that this has been somewhat linked to their improved Web Dashboard, which I’m almost embarrassed to admit, I have been using quite a bit.

Here’s a recent post about thie new/upcomming “Behind the Firewall” Project.

It’s being pushed as a stand alone Second Life solution for enterprise.  I find this kind of odd on several levels and it raises some questions.  One, does it interact with the LL Asset database.  That is, can I take my virtual stuff to the stand alone server?

If no, then my next question would be, what is the benefit of this over using OpenSim?  OpenSim is free aside from Hardware, and it’ll run on some pretty old (cheap) hardware.  I’ve set up 3 OpenSim “grids” for personal use in the last year using this guide.  Granted there has never been more than one user connected to these sims at any given time, but none have been on any level of high end hardware.  They all used leftover relics that were intended for the dumpster from my employer.  My current go sits on my Laptop, which is something like a 1 Ghz Pentium 4 with 512 mB of RAM.  I run the Sim server and the Second Life Client on the same machine.

The OpenSim experience is certainly nothing like the real SL experience and my use of it is limited to testing out building techniques and textures.  However, in the interest of money savings, if you’re not getting your Second Life clothing and shapes, why not just deploy an OpenSim server in your company?  You’ll have to build everything from the ground up anyway.

I mention this mostly because this system can’t possibly be cheap.  It’s my understanding that one Second Life Region is the equivalent of one physical Real Life Server (Excluding OpenSpace Etc).  They charge $1000 USD to set up a Region then some ridiculous hundreds of dollars a month upkeep.  To deploy a system that will effectively eliminate part of what they consider a core customer base (Though it’s questionable if they actually are), that brings in these high constant cash streams, doesn’t seem like an economical idea unless they are over charging to make up for it.

On theother hand, I’m sure there are benefits and factors I’m not aware of that someone who knows better could explain.