The Operations department at SecureSafe is made up of 4 system engineers. They are responsible for the server infrastructure and ultimately for ensuring that our customers can access their data at any time. In this interview, Pascal Weller (43) explains how data gets from the PC to the cloud and what role the servers play in this process.
Pascal Weller specialized in complex server architectures more than 15 years ago. He has been working for SecureSafe as a system engineer since 2014.
The system engineer is responsible for the server infrastructure. The first step of his work is the design of the entire server architecture. Important decision criteria here are the required performance, security and operational processes. In the next step, he installs the hardware in the data centers and installs/configures the required software. The goal is to have processes that function as automatically as possible without unnecessary manual work. Of course, the whole process is continuously optimized, expanded and adapted to changing conditions. In IT, the world never stands still and it is always important to keep up with the latest developments.
Finally, another point is the monitoring of the entire server environment. We want to detect any problem in good time, before it becomes a restriction for the user. After all, the ultimate goal is for users to be able to reliably access the data in their online storage at all times.
The servers handle all the requests that our customers send to the cloud - for example, when they save files in the safe, retrieve passwords or download PDFs. There are always multiple servers involved so that if one fails, another can take over. So we have a triple redundant system, which means that each file always goes to 3 different storage systems.
We use standard servers. These models are designed for installation in server cabinets and are therefore always the same width, but different heights. They are often referred to as pizza boxes, because in their most compact form they look exactly like what the pizza courier brings over. Depending on the function, the height and the technical inner workings of the server then vary: storage servers are the largest because they have to accommodate a lot of hard disks. Application servers process countless requests and are therefore present in large numbers. The database, the brain of the entire system, so to speak, must meet the highest requirements in terms of speed and reliability.
