Want to know what lies underneath the message “Your mailbox currently is under technical maintenance”? Or, for example, how much information is stored at Inbox? Read on, then! Our chief engineer Denis Gaplevskis explains how it is to ensure that Inbox products work with utmost precision every day.
Denis, as I understand, your main task is to keep a check on everything to work properly and smoothly. What is the most important thing in this job?
The most essential task in our work is to have focus, accuracy and analytical skills. Inbox.lv system is very complex, because it includes not only Inbox Mail e-mail, but also Inbox Foto photo service, Inbox Files file storage service and others. And these are not only web applications, but also storage, delivery, and e-mail filtering, many different support systems, as well as servers, networking equipment, and even air conditioning. Sometimes, the fastest way to detect problems is based on generalized information coming from monitoring systems. Accuracy and the ability to quickly make complex decisions can mitigate the important issues without interruption of service.
It is clear that the amount of information stored in the Inbox is huge. Is there an exact number?
It’s difficult to define any exact number, because inbox.lv stores user data. And users have a habit of deleting old data and adding new one. But in general, there is a constant increase. For mail, data volume is about 350 terabytes, for Inbox Files – about 100Tb. By comparison, about 1TB are equal to 500 full-length movies in mpeg4.
How many people work in the technical department of Inbox and what do they do?
We have 4-5 people in our department, and they’re responsible for servers, operating systems, and all existing applications’ work. Problem finding and solving requires significant amount of resources. In addition, we are making continuous improvements in our services and we closely follow the development of new technologies, test and implement the best of them.
Often our users are worried when they see message on their screens that says “Your mailbox is currently under technical maintenance”. Can you explain exactly what this means?
User information is stored on different servers and to ensure equal distribution of load, data can be migrated to other servers. During this process users see the above mentioned message displayed. Usually these technical improvements are carried out at night, so it would affect the user as little as possible. This message can also be seen in the event of a problem with the hardware in our data center.
How can you describe Your impression about working at Inbox? What do You like the most?
It is really cool to work here! We have a friendly team of professionals, in which everyone knows and performs its work at best and is always willing to help others. We strive to be at the edge of information technology, at least in the Latvian market.
