servers

Enlarge / Artist's conception of Blizzard fighting off DDoS attackers. When a highly anticipated online game launches, unforeseen server capacity issues and long entry queues are nothing out of the ordinary. In the case of this week's Overwatch 2 early access launch, though, the usual crowding problems are apparently being exacerbated by coordinated distributed denial…

Enlarge / Thirty-six individual models of Ice Lake Xeon Scalable processor launch today, with immediate retail availability expected from major system vendors, including Supermicro, HPE, and Dell. Intel launched a new batch of third-generation Xeon server processors today. Significantly, these are Ice Lake processors—meaning Intel's 10 nm process, not the increasingly outdated 14 nm process…

Six servers Cisco uses to provide a virtual networking service were compromised by hackers who exploited critical flaws contained in unpatched versions the open source software service relies on, the company disclosed on Thursday. Got updates? The May 7 compromise hit six Cisco servers that provide backend connectivity to the Virtual Internet Routing Lab Personal…

The front of the rack-mountable Mac Pro. The back of the rack-mountable Mac Pro. Inside the Mac Pro. Another side inside the Mac Pro. Apple has begun selling the rack-mounted variant of its Mac Pro desktop computer. The tower version launched about a month ago, but the rack version is currently showing ship dates ranging…

Enlarge / Who needs a portable Xbox when you can stream Gears 5 to your Android phone? That seems to be Microsoft's proposition with an upcoming xCloud streaming test. Roughly one year after announcing plans for its Project xCloud game streaming service, Microsoft will roll out a public test of xCloud next month for Android…

Enlarge / Sea of Thieves is a game already using Azure for its server hosting and scaling. Rare Microsoft today launched a preview of PlayFab Multiplayer Servers, a new Azure-based service giving game developers dynamic, on-demand scaling of multiplayer servers. Microsoft bought Seattle-based PlayFab earlier this year with a view to using it to expand…

Enlarge / The tank is Sony. The explosion is Warhawk players' hopes and dreams. [Update (Nov. 2, 2018): Following the publication of the report below, Sony appears to have extended the server shutdown dates for the affected games through January. Reddit user Ember_Rising says he received an email from Sony saying, "We wanted to update you on…

Enlarge / The tank is Sony. The explosion is Warhawk players' hopes and dreams. If you read Ars Technica (or simply play online games regularly), you're probably accustomed to game makers shutting down online gameplay servers at will, often with little-to-no notice. When it comes to the impending server shutdown for early PS3 release Warhawk,…

A bipartisan pair of senators requested more answers from Supermicro, the motherboard producer that an explosive report said sold equipment to major US tech companies that had been infiltrated by the Chinese government. Republican Sen. Marco Rubio and Democratic Sen. Richard Blumenthal sent a letter Tuesday to Supermicro's CEO, Charles Liang, asking for more information…