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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."

5 of 292 comments (clear)

  1. Still on unix? by rockytriton · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Are they still on unix? I heard they were, doesn't Microsoft own them though?

    --- http://www.dreamsyssoft.com/unix-shell-scripting

  2. KISS, for the uninitiated... by nganju · · Score: 0, Redundant

    ... stands for "Keep it simple, silly", or "Keep it simple, stupid". There are other variations on the acronym but the general idea is the same.

    --
    There are 2 kinds of people in this world. Those that can keep their train of thought,
  3. Lies, damned lies by bazmail · · Score: -1, Redundant

    Slashdot says: Hotmail relies on less than 100 system administrators to manage it all.

    Article says:Hotmail relies on less than 100 system administrators to manage it all.

    I mean REALLY. a new low for /. [/sarc]

  4. stabilised... by ladyKae · · Score: 0, Redundant
    spam levels have stabilized
    ... *erm* stabilised how, is that on a slope? reckon those hotmail guys wanna check their spirit levels, cos I don't think the bubble is in the right place....!
    --

    Smile, it confuses people

  5. command line is about remote console by Anonymous Coward · · Score: -1, Redundant
    The machines you're maintaining most likely don't even have X client support installed. Using curses for menu support isn't an option since getting the tty settings right is often problematic. Ever see a curses menu when the screen size is set wrong?

    I wrote a set of scripts once for this kind of environment. I had to write a whole set of line mode menu support routines.