What is your average in-game latency with DMZ.MY?

I’m collecting some information on your experience with DMZ.MY and I would appreciate it if you can let me know what is your average in-game latency when you’re connected to our DMZ.MY servers.

Please help me by voting on the poll below. Thank you very much.

DMZ.MY Servers’ Ping Status display

A little history…
We understand that there are times where you’re experiencing lag spikes/high latency even though you’re connected to our DMZ.MY servers. The are 2 reasons for that to happen -

1. Your connection to our DMZ.MY servers is not optimal due to either a local ISP issue or network interruptions.
2. Our DMZ.MY servers itself is experiencing a higher latency issue due to network interruptions.

For Issue no. 1, it is very easy to troubleshoot as running a simple ping test from your PC to our servers will be able to help you identify if there is any packets loss or it’s showing ping results which is higher than usual.

But for Issue no. 2, you have to contact us to find out if the servers are working fine and if the network link on the servers itself is having some issue.

Our solution
We have now added a new ‘Servers Status’ tab in our Members Portal.

This ‘Servers Status’ tab loads all ping test results generated by our DMZ.MY servers (automatically every 10 minutes) and display them back to you. From this results, you will be able to identify if our servers are working optimally in order to help troubleshoot your situation.

This will also help you identify which other servers are performing well and assist you in quickly choosing an alternative server to connect to.

New ‘Servers Status’ display
Here’s an overview on how to read the ping results and identify if there is any issues with our servers.

1. All the ping results retrieved from the Servers will have a timestamp to show at what time the test is executed. This timestamp is set to UTC format.
2. This is the ping response results from the LA WoW datacenter (IP 12.129.193.242). Basically, the lower the number the better but it should also be almost consistent to ensure a stable connection.
3. This shows how many ping requests were sent and how many requests were replied. If there are any packet loss, then this might result in lag spikes and higher latency to your gameplay.

 

This is just one of our many efforts to help improve your gameplay experience with DMZ.MY. We welcome any feedback or suggestions in order to help improve our service better. Please contact us via the Support channels listed in the Members Portal.

Thank you.

MAL04 current status

Dear valued users,

There was an interruption yesterday to MAL04′s network route that resulted in slightly degraded performance. While it is not a total disruption; I believe some users experienced a higher latency when connected to MAL04.

Since this is out of my control, I’ve only been able to closely monitor it’s status. It seems that now, all previous issues with regards to the earlier issue has been resolved.

This is the current ping time from MAL04 to LA WoW datacenter:

PING 12.129.193.242 (12.129.193.242) 56(84) bytes of data.
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=1 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=2 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=3 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=4 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=5 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=6 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=7 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=8 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=9 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=10 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=11 ttl=243 time=209 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=12 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=13 ttl=243 time=211 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=14 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=15 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=16 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=17 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=18 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=19 ttl=243 time=208 ms
64 bytes from 12.129.193.242: icmp_seq=20 ttl=243 time=210 ms

— 12.129.193.242 ping statistics —
20 packets transmitted, 20 received, 0% packet loss, time 19009ms
rtt min/avg/max/mdev = 208.293/208.847/211.392/0.885 ms

It’s back to it’s normal 200~ms range and very constant.

My apologies for any inconvenience caused and please contact me via the Support channel should you require further assistance.

Changes to credit deduction system

Dear valued users of DMZ.MY,

DMZ.MY has been a pioneer in providing a WoW tunnel prepaid system where your credit only gets deducted when you login on a new day. Currently, 12AM Malaysian time is considered a new day cycle as this is when our Central server goes about and does a little spring cleaning updating everyone’s credits and records.

Come January 2010, this will change.

We’ve been working hard and started provisioning a new credit system to ensure that our users get the best value for their money. Thus, starting January 2010, your new day cycle will begin from the time that you login on each new day and not on a fixed 12AM MYT schedule anymore.

What does this means to you? Let’s look at an example.
On the current system, when you login at say 11PM Friday night, our system will check and deduct 1 day credit if this is a new day cycle. At 12AM Saturday (just 1 hour), if you’re still connected to our servers, our little spring cleaning script on the Central Server goes around and updates everyone’s record and since it’s considered a new day cycle – your credit will get deducted an additional day as well. This means that, in essence, your credit for Friday was used for only 1 hour.

With the new system, when you login at 11PM Friday night, our system will check and deduct 1 day credit if this is a new day cycle. At 12AM Saturday, our spring cleaning script will not deduct another day’s credit because your credit now gives you full 24 hours usage. In this case, any subsequent login before 11PM Saturday will not be considered as a new day.

When will this change take place?
On the 5th of January (Tuesday), there will be a 2 hours downtime (from 10pm – 12am MYT) to facilitate the change from the old system to the new system. This is in accordance to our monthly maintenance schedule and I hope also will fall in between WoW’s maintenance schedule so that you will not experience any downtime to your gameplay schedule.

We continuously strive to provide the best service possible and we hope that with the new credit deduction system, you; our valued users will get to get more bang for your buck.

Please feel free to write to me at support[@t]dmz.my if you have any feedbacks and comments.

Celebrate Xmas & New Year with DMZ.MY new promo!

DMZ.MY is pleased to present you our new promotions for Christmas and New Year.

1. 10 days of FREE TRIAL
   3 days trial not enough for you? No worries, just send us an e-mail to request for additional trial and we’ll add extra 7 days trial to your account. Here at DMZ.MY, we’re determined to ensure that our service works for you before you sign up, so give us a try today.

   Creating an account with DMZ.MY is easy and instant. Go to http://dmz.my and click on the “Create my account” link to get started.

2. 20% extra credit on all topups
   Get an extra 20% credits whenever you topup your account with us. 30 days credit topup will get an extra 6 days credit and 100 days credit topup will get an extra 20 days credit.

   To topup your credit, login to the Members Portal and click on the “Credits & Payment” tab.

3. 20:10 on all new referral
   Sharing the news about DMZ.MY has never been so rewarding. Earn 20 days of free credits when your new referral makes a purchase for 100 days credit or 10 days of free credits for a 30 days credit purchase.

   To get your referral link, log in to the Members Portal and copy the link on the Overview tab.

Terms & Conditions

1. Promotion 1 will require user to submit a short feedback after the trial period.
2. Promotion 2 & 3 is valid from 1st December 2009 until 31st December 2009.
3. All bonuses and extra credits will be added manually by DMZ admin.

 

If you have any questions, please feel free to contact us at support [@t] dmz [dot] my.

WoW and Battle.net merge issues

It has come to my attention that some of you are having issues connecting using DMZ servers after merging your account with Battle.net.

Please note that all DMZ servers DO fully support the merged account and thus this might be a problem with the proxifier software or simply a configuration change on the local machine.

Please try the following steps if you’re having issues with your merged account:

1. Try using a different proxifier software. I recommend trying out with Proxifier first as this software allows you to see the connection log and easily identifies what is being tunneled. You can also give Sockscap or Widecap a try if Freecap isn’t working.
2. Follow the recommended instructions from Blizzard support. Please read more here – http://us.blizzard.com/support/article.xml?locale=en_US&articleId=26433 or perhaps this post from one of the WoW Forum might work (refer to the instructions on Post number 6).

 
If you’re still having problems with logging in to WoW, please contact me via the Support channels listed in the Members Portal and I’ll assist you further from there.

New policy on user’s account retention

We will be implementing a policy on managing current users’ account retention on our DMZ servers. This is inline with our efforts to keep our DMZ servers optimized in order to provide our users with the best service possible.

There will be 2 stages of user retention -

1. Account deletion (removal from DMZ servers and central database).
   • New account created but not activated within 5 days. Users will be able to reregister with the same username/password after 5 days.
2. Account deactivation (removal from DMZ servers but not on central database).
   • New account activated but never logged in once into the servers in the past 30 days. Users will be able to reactivate their account instantly via the Members Portal.
   • Accounts with 0 credit remaining and have not logged in to the servers in the past 30 days. Users will be able to reactivate their account instantly via the Members Portal and top-up their credits.
   • Accounts activated with credit balance but not logged into the servers in the past 90 days. Users will be able to reactivate their account instantly via the Members Portal.

 
REST ASSURED that all users with remaining credits will not be deleted / removed from our system. Your credits do not expire with us. Please note that this implementation of user retention policy will begin over the weekend but it shouldn’t affect any of your usual gameplay experience.

If you have any queries, please contact us via the support channels listed in the Members Portal.

Thank you.

Maintenance schedule on all DMZ servers

In order to ensure the optimal performance of all our DMZ servers; I plan to start a monthly maintenance schedule on all the servers. This maintenance schedule will allow me to apply new software updates to the servers, refresh firewall rules, add new features and fix possible bugs in our User Connection Management System.

The maintenance schedule is planned to be on the first Tuesday of every month from 10pm-12am GMT+8. (Hopefully coincide with the WoW realm maintenance schedule in order to reduce the downtime of our users).

During this timeframe; new connections will be denied on the servers that’s going through the updates. Currently connected users might experience interruptions to their connection to DMZ servers but I hope to keep it as minimal and avoid disconnecting any users unnecessary.

The first maintenance will be this coming Tuesday (Nov 3rd, 2009) from 10pm-12am GMT +8.
I’ll be rolling out new firewall rules (to enable traceroute statistics) and also make a change to the User Connection Management System to improve on the accuracy of the connected time statistics.

Thank you for your understanding and please do contact me via any of our support contact channels listed in the Members Portal site if you need any further information or have any inquiries.

UPDATE:
Maintenance is now completed.

Information regarding DMZ servers

I thought it’ll be good to provide some extra information about the DMZ servers here so that it’ll help you determine the best connection to our servers possible.

We currently have 5 servers with 3 servers in Malaysia, 1 in Singapore and another in Los Angeles, USA.

1. MAL01.DMZ.MY
   • Location: AIMS Datacenter, KL.
   • Remarks: Usually very stable even during peak hours. Local ping from Streamyx users connection to server can range from 1-5ms to 20-30ms. Possibly the best choice during evening/night time.
2. MAL02.DMZ.MY
   • Location: Cyberjaya, KL
   • Remarks: Provides excellent connection but frankly, this datacenter has been hit with a string of network issues lately and been experiencing intermittent network disruptions.
3. MAL03.DMZ.MY
   • Location: TMNet Datacenter, KL.
   • Remarks: Provides the best local ping to StreamyX users and also have good ping time to US. Unfortunately, recently there seems to be a trend whereby sometimes during evening/night time; the network experiences slightly higher ping (possibly due to peak hours and higher traffic demands on the DC’s network). On most of the time, StreamyX users should have the best connection via this server.
4. SIN01.DMZ.MY
   • Location: Singapore.
   • Remarks: Provides around the same ping time as all the Malaysian servers to US, EU but this server should have better connectivity for our international users.
5. LOS01.DMZ.MY
   • Location: Los Angeles, USA.
   • Remarks: Best option for our international users. This server is based in US and hence ping time to WoW servers are like less than 5-10ms from the server itself.

All our server’s health and load are reported live (automatically updated every 5 minutes) on our website. You can also use the Ping test from our website to get a quick gauge on which server has the fastest link to your connection. I’ll provide more information such as average ping time and traceroutes for the servers in the near future.

Any comments on our server’s performance are most welcome. You can reply to this thread or simply send an e-mail to our official support e-mail address.

Cheers~

MAL02′s datacenter network upgrade exercise

Please take note that MAL02′s datacenter will be going through a network upgrade exercise. The details of the upgrade is as follows:

Date: 30th October 2009
Time: 8:00pm – 9:00pm GMT +8

Please connect to MAL01 or MAL03 during the mentioned time to avoid any interruptions to your gameplay. Thank you.