We know why it's broken, and we know how to fix it!

We all have felt a fairly regular series of lags/slowdowns for a good
time now. These have generally lasted on the order of 5-13 seconds, but
sometimes have hit as high as 23 or so. These are measurable and we've
got them in our big master log which can be affectionately referred to
as the 'what the heck is wrong?' log.

Interestingly, the total lag for an entire 24-hour real life day is not
all that bad - on the order of 400-600 seconds. If a day has 86,400
seconds, then the total lag is only about half a percent, and we'd all
probably never notice if it were spread nicely over the day.

The lag isn't spread out nicely, and that's the problem. It is caused by
the every-20-minute backup of Imperian, which shares a server with our
database! When Imperian backs up, everybody else hangs.

Now to the solution! Yes. We found one!

We at Achaea, with all of your best interests in mind, proposed simply
shutting down Imperian, or having them never do backups. For some reason
we cannot fathom, these brilliant requests were not honoured
immediately. So we moved to a backup plan: kick Imperian out onto its
own server.

Today Iron Realms has ordered a new server for Imperian. The largest
source of lag on our end should be gone within the next few weeks.

The end of the biggest baddest lag source we can find is coming. 'Tis a
day for rejoicing. And 'tis a day for us again thanking you all for your
endless patience during these trying times, soon to END!

Penned by my hand on the 19th of Aeguary, in the year 463 AF.