The Rice Thresher

Location: http://the.ricethresher.org/news/2006/04/21/new_email_system

April 21, 2006 > News > E-mail system nears capacity

E-mail system nears capacity

IT to install new system with more storage space over summer

By Risa Gordon | Thresher Editorial Staff

Rice’s undergraduate e-mail system neared 100 percent capacity this week, prompting Information Technology to post flyers around campus asking students to clean out their e-mail. If the e-mail system reaches capacity before IT switches to a new system in July, there will not be space for additional e-mails to be saved, and new mail will not be delivered.

Barry Ribbeck, the systems, architecture and infrastructure director said as of Wednesday morning, the five-year-old mail system was about 96 percent full — a decrease because students deleted e-mails since receiving IT’s warnings. IT’s goal is to keep the system below 95-percent of its capacity for the rest of the semester, Ribbeck said.

Ribbeck said IT will not delete anyone’s e-mail messages, even if an account is clearly not being used. Ribbeck said if the system reaches capacity, another system will store messages for 30 days, which then will be delivered when space becomes available. Users will still be able to send e-mails even if capacity is reached.

Vice Provost for Information Technology Kamran Khan said IT plans to move student, faculty and staff e-mail accounts to a new e-mail, storage and back-up system around July 15. Khan said the $1.5-million system will allow 1 GB of storage space for each undergraduate. The system is currently being piloted, but IT does not want to begin using it until the semester is over.

Ribbeck said about 70 percent of the e-mail sent through the e-mail system is spam, and it accumulates because some students do not delete their junk mail. Also many students automatically forward their messages to other systems and never delete e-mail in their Rice accounts.

“If people cleaned out their mail, we could easily survive the next few weeks,” Ribbeck said.

Each student is allotted about 50 MB for inbox storage and 100 MB for folder storage.

Ribbeck said the actual amount available to each student depends on the storage limit theoretically available to each user and the number of people the system serves. Ribbeck said either of those variables could have changed, allowing the system to reach capacity without all students using 150 MB of space.

Ribbeck said shifting e-mail to the new system will take about an hour for an e-mail account near capacity.

“Working to get the connection between the [off-site] data center and campus has taken longer than expected, but it is in place now,” Khan said. “We feel confident that the new e-mail system will be ready when students come back.”

Khan said capacity should not be a problem with the new e-mail system, not only because of the extra storage, but also because adding additional storage will be easier.

Ribbeck said IT has monitored the increase in e-mail storage for six to eight months. In January, the system was at about 90-percent capacity, but there is usually an increase in storage utlilization around the end of the semester, Ribbeck said.

IT has used clean-up procedures to clear up space on the system. In the summer, a policy change allowed graduates only one month before their e-mail accounts would be deleted, in contrast to the previous one-year allowance.

End of article

Back to top