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Behind the Scenes at Hotmail

Posted by Zonk on from the that's-a-big-datacenter-you-have-grandma dept.

mallumax writes "ACM Queue interviews Hotmail engineer Phil Smoot on how they manage more than 10,000 servers spread around the globe. Between them, they process billions of emails per day and are overseen by hundreds of administrators. To do that they have returned to the command line. From the article: 'Our operations group never wants to rely on any sort of user interface. Everything has to be scriptable and run from some sort of command line'. The overriding philosophy seems to be KISS. Also: tape backups are out and spam levels have stabilized."

6 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Still running *NIX? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 0, Flamebait

    Isn't this the same Hotmail that started out running Linux or a UNIX?

    Then Redmond purchased to try to show that Windoze scaled just as well as *NIX ...and Windoze died under the load that the *NIX environment handled with aplomb.

    I guess they finally managed to migrate it to Windoze... I think it very amusing that they avoid the GUI and are a CLI/scripted environment. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

  2. So where is Search? by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    I love to read how hotmail and yahoo mail think they have caught up to gmail but still have no search capability.

    Why don't my yahoo account confirmation emails reach hotmail? If they are treated as spam, why don't they go in the junk folder? They just disappear.. Why is gmail's spam handling so much better than hotmail?

    Hotmail is comical in every sense.

  3. SMOOOT!!!! by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Vikings fans/enemies will understand.

  4. Re:Hundreds of admins for 10K servers is not so ho by gelfling · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    Excuse me and thanks for the insult. You must be a /. mod or groupie.

    Our support ratio, oh being of celestial intelligence, is, wait let me check MY figures.... yeah about 250:1 I think they're still mediocre.

    BTW oh brain of computing intelligence far beyond the comprehension of mere mortals...the article was (now breathe deep...) /. so I couldn't read TFA.

    Thanks again for talking out your fucking ass like so many noob dickwads at /. who think that having an opinion about something they read online is not only the same as having real experience, but even better.

  5. Microsoft Is Full of Retarded Queers by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    There's no contest. Bill Gates is a raging homosexual who likes to stick the MSN butterfly up his ass. His wife is in fact a tranny named Norm Best, and they both like to cum over the excitable Hotmail engineers, who are in fact, the biggest pack of homo retards the world has ever known. I mean these guys are gay and dumb. They buttfuck constantly, and the only way they can manage the system is by hiring Solaris experts to keep the whole thing going while they're off doing their little anal shagging parties.

  6. Mod parent "Zero Value Added" by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Flamebait

    What assclown modded the parent "Informative?"

    "Dur, maybe he's wrong."

    Gee, thanks, you mouth-breathing moron. It never occurred to me to question any source of information. Surely you have some information that contradicts, or that at least casts doubt on the parent? No?

    Fuck you, assclown.