VRworlds HQ
The headquarters are in a old mine built into Mount Loo'gan (Mount Logan), the highest mountain in Caneda (Canada) and the second-highest peak in North Amerrica (North America). It is accessible by one road that is inaccessible in the winter due to heavy snow. There is an the access spiral road indie the mountain, going down to all six levels of the facility. The dimensions allow for trailers to deliver the data center containers right into the installation. The main access road, or avenue, on each mine levels is over a thousand feet long and cuts through the mountain. The company has built an datacenter and the rest of their HQ in some of the rooms hollowed out in the base of the mountain.
The rooms was hollowed out by room and pillar mining. The headquarters is accessible via underground 'avenues' and 'streets' in a grid pattern and ids built in ten levels. The maximum potential floor space is seven hundred and forty three thousand, two hundred and twenty-four square meters , (or nearly eight million square feet). The height of the streets is thirty meters (or about nighty-eight feet) and the streets are twenty meters (or about sixty-six feet) wide. The width of the streets allows placement of containers on both side of the street with a transportation route in the middle. The shipping containers are stacked on top of each other, in three heights, supported by steel frames.
These containers have been fitted for many uses, such as modular datacenters, office quarters and living quarters. There is very tight access control to their headquarters. There are very few ways in at ground level and ways in have some insane protection. It is known all rooms have protection on the doors and log all access, successful or not.To save resources, all lights are LED lights and are turned off when unneeded, stoves are induction and all backup servers are turned OFF until needed.
Each modular datacenter container has a generator, main LV board, DCIM [data center infrastructure management], mini CPS [AC and DC], modular UPS [uninterruptible power supply], rack mount PDC, PDU [power distribution unit], inbuilt batteries, cooling systems, hot isle containment, , fire suppression, a condenser and racks of servers and networking equipment. The modular datacenter containers holds stuff like the servers running Aeru Online, Aeru Online server backups and general dataholding (access logs and so on), game logs and backups. Other servers include the thirty or more servers for the VR headset services alone (updates, tracking, etc and the thirty servers in it that are used for R&D.
Power system for VRworlds
The origin of the power is an hydroelectric plant in the city of Darpa- outputs 345kV power and they have an emergency diesel generator farm for fallback power generation. Substation: A substation called 'The Monster Station' because it has a loud, nasty 60hZ hum. Steps the 345kV down to 132kV and splits it off 6 different ways. One set of lines goes to another substation. Substation 2 is The substation powering the VRworlds HQ. Steps the 132kV down to 28.8kV and feeds North Darpa- Owned by North Darpa Power Systems. Power is split and runs through a set of 3 phase lines going directly to the VRworlds HQ. Substation 3 is the substation is located in the VRworlds HQ in a massive room. This substation steps the 28.8kV down to 14.4kV- a main feed for a small section of Darpa.
The VRworlds company also runs a power company from this feed- another way to generate revenue for the company. This substation also steps 28.8kV down to 600V and that is fed directly into a main switchgear room. The main Switchgear Room is an extremely dangerous and heavily guarded room. This room is guarded by heavily armed guards, and only 6 people are allowed access to this room. To access this room, you need a security clearance, and there is a 10 digit passcode, an iris scan, a fingerprint scan, and a face profile scan. There are exposed copper buss bars everywhere. The PPE required weighs 50 pounds and has it's own integrated air conditioner.
The equipment in this room can kill the power to the entire VRworlds HQ and the 14.4kV feed to the small section of Darpa. The secondary Switchgear Room is much less guarded than the main switchgear room. All someone needs to gain access is to pass a fingerprint scan. No PPE is required unless a live panel is opened up, which is extremely rare. The switchgear in this room can be used to kill the power to the 277V-120V transformers and kill the power to all non-critical 480V equipment. The server Switchgear Room is guarded by 1 armed guard. All electrical workers and server administrators have access, provided that they have a security clearance and pass an iris scan and a fingerprint scan.
The switchgear in this room can kill the 480V to the A/C systems cooling the servers and the 208V to the servers and UPSs. This room also has the 384VDC battery disconnects and battery bypass switchgear for the UPSs protecting the server racks. Cables: The 28.8kV coming into the local substation is custom made cable- it's 4/0 steel cable with a 12 inch outer PVC jacket as insulation. The 14.4kV exiting the local substation is 2/0 steel cable with a 6 inch PVC jacket as insulation. The 600V exiting the substation that goes to the main switchgear room is premade 4/0 cable.
Plumbing Systems
At the hydroelectric plant supplying power to Darpa, there are 4 siphon tubes, each with a pump feeding a massive 500,000 gallon holding tank. This tank has 15 recirculatory pumps installed and running. All 15 pumps are running 24/7/365 and are supplied by a 480V feed coming from the local substation. The pumps are Baldor Electric SDS4100 motors made in August 1990 connected to a Marshall Water Systems HF3000 pump (All left over from the mine's closure in 1990). These pumps all have noisy bearings, and they can be heard resonating throughout the VRworlds plumbing system at all hours. The purpose of these pumps is to keep the water moving so it doesn't go stale and attract bugs and pests.
At the bottom of the tank, there are 4 large pipes going into a massive 300,000 gallon pressure tank. There are 2 Baldor SDS10000 motors connected to Marshall Water Systems XHF/HBP9500 pumps. This tank has 10 more Baldor Electric SDS4100 motors linked through an electric clutch assembly to a Marshall Water Systems BPC2500 pump. All of the motors in this tank are also kept running 24/7/365, but the pumps themselves are only engaged when water has been sitting in the tank for more than 3 hours and the main feed pumps have been disengaged for that same amount of time. This tank maintains the water pressure throughout the VRworlds facility at a stout 100PSI.
There are 4 massive ball valves sealing the siphons off from the holding tank, and 4 more valves sealing the holding tank off from the pressure tank. These valves are operated by Baldor/Reliance HT9500 600V motors connected through a Dodge EST15000 gearbox. These motors are operated 4 times a year: Twice on January 10, and twice on June 22 for regular tank cleaning, inspection, and maintenance. At the bottom of the pressure tank, there are 4 main water pipes that can be sealed off by butterfly valves. These valves are normally open, but are automatically closed in the event of a severe pressure dip exceeding 75% of the total supply pressure.
This protects the facility against potential water pipe breakages. The 1st water pipe goes directly to the chiller systems that cool the CPUs and PSUs in the datacenter. There are 2 pumps on this water line, a 208V Baldor/Reliance SDS1500 motor connected to a Marshall Water Systems DFM1500 pump that pumps water in. The water goes into the chiller systems, is circulated through, and is drained directly into the pressure tank with the help of another 208V Baldor/Reliance SDS1500 and Marshall Water Systems DFM1500 pump/motor combo. The 2nd and 3rd water lines are for residential use. There are 2 480V Baldor/Reliance HT7500 motors connected to Marshall Water Systems RF7500 pumps on each water line.
The motors are controlled via a pressure switch. If the water pressure on the line drops below 75PSI, the pumps will start up. These water lines are for things like the kitchen, bathrooms, and things like that. One water line is wrapped with heater tape that heats the water to 95F to prevent it from freezing on cold nights. This water line goes into a large 10,000 gallon heating tank with about 1/4 mile of heating elements inside that heats the water up to 150F. There is a float switch in the tank that kills the power to the elements in the event that the water level drops too low. This float switch switches 120V to a set of relays that switch the 600V to the heater elements.
Following this heater tank, there is a butterfly valve operated by a 208V Baldor/Reliance MT500 motor connected through a Dodge MT750 gearbox. The cold water line also has a butterfly valve, which is also operated by a 208V Baldor/Reliance MT500 motor and Dodge MT750 gearbox combo. The 4th water line is for fire service. It has 2 600V Baldor/Reliance HS/HT9500 motors connected through a Dodge MeT12500 gearbox to a Industrial WaterWorks SDS15000 pump. This feeds into a 5000 gallon pressure tank that keeps the fire service pressure at a potent 200PSI. There is a ball valve sealing this line off from the pressure tank that is operated by another 208V Baldor/Reliance MT500 motor and Dodge MT750 gearbox combo.
Following the pressure tank, there is a massive Baldor/Reliance HS/HT15600 motor connected to an Industrial WaterWorks HT/HS25000 pump. This is no valve sealing the pump off from the sprinkler system. All residential water drains into a sanitation system runoff channel. This feeds into a water treatment plant and then it drains back into the large river that the water was originally siphoned from.
IT systems for VRworlds
VRworlds gets it's main Internet connection directly off of an Internet Exchange that is owned by North Star Internet (NSI). There are 6 100GbE connections operating in parallel for a total bandwidth of 600Gb/s. Each 100GbE connection runs on 10 fiber optic cables in parallel, with each cable running at 10Gb/s. Any of the 60 fiber optic cables can lose it's link and the connection can remain online, but the connection will drop after 40 of the 60 cables have lost their link. Each fiber optic cable goes through a converter that translates the fiber optic protocol back into the Ethernet protocol. Each converter has 10 ports on it, each running at 1Gb/s.
These ports have Ethernet cables plugged into them. There are a total of 60 converters spread across 2 30U server racks. 100 cables converge into a load balancing server. Following the load balancing server, there is a firewall server that serves to protect each 100GbE trunk line. There are 6 such setups, each protecting a 100GbE trunk line. Following each firewall setup is another series of converters to convert back to the fiber-optic protocol. This connects to the main load balancing server, which handles all 600Gb/s worth of traffic. This main load balancing server has converters integrated into it, and it also splits the 6 100GbE trunk lines up into 60 10GbE connections.
1 10GbE connection goes to the IRC servers. There is a switch that splits this 10GbE connection up into 10 1GbE ports. There are 5 switches connected to it, with 5 IRC servers each for a total of 25 IRC servers. An entire 100GbE trunk line is dedicated to the residential halls. There are 10 halls, each getting their own 10GbE connection, and 10 rooms per hall, each getting a 1Gb/s connection. All slaves can have computers in their cells, but their Internet access is highly restricted and is not private at all. All 6 100GbE firewall servers force-issue MITM certificates and perform packet sniffing/traffic inspection. If blocked data is found attempting to travel in or out of the network, the firewall simply closes the connection by sending a FIN packet followed by an RST packet.
This closes and then resets the connection. More than 5 attempted connections to the same site from the same user within 5 minutes will trigger a warning that will prompt a high level Network Administrator to see what's going on. 4 100GbE trunk lines are dedicated to running the game and critical infrastructure. The trunk line splits off and gets routed through to switches. Each 100GbE trunk line connects to 10 switches, each operating at 10GbE. Each switch has 10 1GbE ports on it. Each VRworlds game server runs on a single 1GbE connection, and there are 400 servers, each pushing as much data as they can through their 1GbE connections. These 4 trunk lines are subsequently pushing a combined total of 400Gb/s of data through them.
The remaining 100GbE trunk line is for running the game's website, support system, and for outside communications with various miscellaneous services, such as controlling equipment for VRworld's power company. This 100GbE trunk line is also used as a backup line in the event that any of the main 100GbE trunk lines go offline for any reason (cable cut, server goes down, etc). Systems Administrators, Network Administrators, ServerAdmins and higher can request 10GbE connections. These will be approved on a case by case basis. In the event that a 10GbE connection is approved, all that has to be done is to log into the switch in the hall and raise the link speed for the appropriate port up to 10Gb/s.
Also, these people can operate servers in their cells. There are a few rules, through. Total load CANNOT be higher than 20A at 208V, or 4.16kW. Also, any public-facing service that allows open chat MUST be able to be shut down at anytime for any reason by VRworlds staff. All chat is monitored and is NOT PRIVATE, and must be made very clear before a connection attempt is made. Nothing on the server can be encrypted. Also, you cannot directly link your server to core infrastructure without the approval of the head Systems Administrator AND the head Network Administrator. The game uses 2 ports: 12575/TCP to establish a connection, relay chat, and transfer large quantities of data (e.g. inventory images), and 9300/UDP for everything else (voice chat, etc).
In the event that either port loses it's connection, the other port has it's connection immediately closed. The SSH port is nonstandard, and all other services use undisclosed, nonstandard ports. Security camera servers are not exposed to the outside internet at all, and is even completely separated from the main network. Only VRworlds staff may access the security camera servers.