Solution to Archimonde-like server problems? (Score 1)

I play on Archimonde (Codemonkey, undead rogue) and I love the PvP there. Archimonde has one of the highest user populations (but also the most balanced between factions) of all servers. Our server experiences problems typical of a system under extreme stress. Very often the database chugs like it is experiencing a bottleneck; i.e. querying the AH inventory, moving an item from the mail or bank to your bag can take 20-30 seconds. The most annoying situation is when the transaction server for the zone in which you are sitting (client/server-request/response) is unresponsive or just plain laggy. For example, key presses for melee combat moves or spell casting can take up to eight seconds sometimes to register on my client software. This makes the game unplayable when the window to implement your next action in combat is a fraction of a second to ensure that you survive. Often when the game server is playing very badly with a latency of greater than 800ms I expect a server restart in short order. However, the server restart can sometimes take an one hour and fifteen minutes (last Saturday night, Aug. 13th). This last weekend, there were three server restarts, two Saturday and one Sunday night. I design and write proprietary software for a large user population that places much overhead and processing load on our database, so I am aware of what you are probably facing. My question is: what are some realistic options that can be implemented to ameliorate these issues? What are the exact issues that cause these problems and what needs to be juggled to reach a solution that will make the game consistently playable? Could the code, OS and database be tightened up? My experience with servers whose performance gradually degrades until restart is necessary is that the code is poorly written, the database connections/transactions are not being performed correctly, or users' actions are negatively affecting the OS as it is currently configured. Reservations on memory are not being freed once they are not needed, connections are not being freed once not needed, logs are getting out of hand and not being maintenanced. Are there just too many users on Archimonde? Is the hardware inadequate? Would throwing newer, beefier servers at the problem or just increasing their number to further divide up the work load solve these issues? Lastly - Is the hardware-programming-database model meant to support this many users? Was it tested in any way to replicate the population that exists on Archimonde? If not, then WoW is probably not optimized and unprepared to deal with the overhead that Archimonde's users will place on the system. Please discuss. Thanks for your time. FOR THE HORDE!