Alleviating some concerns with database record handling
Posted: Sat Apr 09, 2016 8:58 am
Currently we are inconsistent when or even if we prune old records. For example the auction house records remain forever and delivery box records are removed as soon as both in game characters no longer have need for them so as a server operator its near impossible to look for an item players claim was lost in the mail.
In both these cases I think it would be more ideal to have a certain retention period, and then prune the oldest unused records. I doubt retail can find auction records from 5 years ago after they've been pushed off the visible in game history (if they are within the last 10 and thus visible, the records are still current).
I know it would take many players and very long time for the AH table to even get moderately large and that this wouldn't really be a problem in my lifetime basically, but might be nice to see some sort of uniform policy for a theoretically scalable "big server" eventually so old records would exist only in the backups* where they belong, instead of bloating the table indefinitely without manual intervention.
*Haven't got backups? You shouldn't even be running a server then.
In both these cases I think it would be more ideal to have a certain retention period, and then prune the oldest unused records. I doubt retail can find auction records from 5 years ago after they've been pushed off the visible in game history (if they are within the last 10 and thus visible, the records are still current).
I know it would take many players and very long time for the AH table to even get moderately large and that this wouldn't really be a problem in my lifetime basically, but might be nice to see some sort of uniform policy for a theoretically scalable "big server" eventually so old records would exist only in the backups* where they belong, instead of bloating the table indefinitely without manual intervention.
*Haven't got backups? You shouldn't even be running a server then.