Interesting comment about Live...

[steve]

forums.station.sony.com/eq/posts/list.m?start=0&topic_id=166548&#2516562

Apparently, SOE runs 40-50 zones on one server. I've never seen info about that posted before. Just thought it was interesting and I would share.

[Amphitryon]

Given how powerful today's servers are, I see no reason like a server such as a Dell PowerEdge R905 could not run multiple zones in Virtual Machines using a Hypervisior (like HyperV,. XEN, or VMWare ESX).

These are machines that can hold 128GB of RAM, up to 8 processor cores, with serial attached SCSI arrays built in using 15k RPM drives, and 4 build in gigbit NICs. They aren't terribly expensive either (my company got them with 32 GB and a 900GB usable Raid 5 SAS drives for under $3k per server direct from Dell.

Seems to me the entirety of EQ could be run off one of those machines.