Chapter 105: Treatment Befitting of Capability (1)

Rumors about YongHo were already spread throughout the company.
The interest in Black Friday was also all the executives’ interests.
The two were inevitably linked.
The management, who learned that Steve was experiencing difficulty, had requested for support from YongHo.
He had no reason to refuse, so he accepted.
As a result, YongHo had appeared in the office where Steve was.
‘It does look like the situation is at its worst.’
The server monitoring situation from the laptop screen didn’t look that good.
Most servers were in the red.
Most of the bars which represented server usage were emitting red lights.

Overall server load 96.3

According to the manual, they had to limit the number of users the moment it reached 98.
The moment it reached 100, it wouldn’t be strange for the so-called system down to occur;.
Server down.
For an IT company, this was the worst possible scenario.
It was hard to predict the amount of money lost in taking care of the VoC(Voice of Customer) when the server were down.
From what he knew from his experience, it was at least 100 billion or more. (T/N: This is probably talking about KRW, not USD, so about 85 million USD)
He could understand why they called for him.
He had already looked over the parts that looked like there would be an overload.
And had already found the parts where he could improve on.
‘The best I can do now is to reduce traffic by applying the module I developed on the image server side’s communication.’
The size of data was bigger for an image than texts, and videos were bigger than images.
Most of the information on a product sold by the company were provided as images.
Such images were going back and forth between the user and the server to cause loads.
As such, normally, the system would be designed such that images would be stored in a separate server in order to manage traffic.
Image-specific server jargon called this CDN(Contents Delivery Network).
YongHo saw an improvable point in the server where images were stored.
‘Currently, the proportion that images have in the overall traffic is over 30%, so let’s apply the compression algorithm here to decrease the amount of data sent through the network.’
The compression rate of the module that YongHo had was 40%.
He was trying to reduce the image data sent through the network by applying it to the server.
He had already tested this before he came here.
He only needed to apply it.

Never!
He was met with opposition before he had even started.
The reason was that he could not allow an untested library on a commercial server immediately.
“I will take responsibility.”
“I don’t think you have the authority nor the position to take responsibility, though?”
Steve didn’t listen to YongHo’s words.
“Then are you saying that you’re going to limit the number of users?”
“It’s better than using your unconfirmed source.”
It wasn’t that YongHo had volunteered to solve the problem.
Since Steve had disagreed, YongHo called somewhere immediately.
Steve, who received the phone that YongHo handed to him, had his face turn quite ugly.
“Yes…Yes.”
Other than yeses, no other words could be heard.
The company had a free atmosphere, but in the end, it was still an organization.
There was someone who had the authority, and he had to follow that.
Steve also could not escape that ‘authority’.

In the end, the compromise was ‘applying gradually’.
Rather than applying to the overall server at once, they had decided to port(install the program) one by one and look at the situation.
If there were only one or two servers, then this process wasn’t necessary, but the number of servers numbered 100. Sequential porting was an absolute necessity.
“Applying complete on server 50.”
Starting from the server that it was applied on, it was gradually nearing stability.
The red bar gradually decreased in height and eventually became yellow, then green.
“Then please apply it to the next server.”
Then, the next server that was waiting, had YongHo’s module applied to it.
It was as if seeing a virus dying after a vaccine.
Like how people, who suffered from high temperature, found homeostasis, the computers also found stability.
When the load decreased, the number of equipment breaking down also decreased rapidly.
“Phew……”
And eventually, all the lights went out, and they could sigh in relief.
Overall server load 72.1
The bar that represented the overall server’s status had also turned green.

The one to sigh in relief wasn’t only YongHo.
The majority of the programmers who were monitoring the server were resting with their backs on their chairs.
Perhaps thanks to the suddenly dissolved tension, there were some who couldn’t move a finger.
“Then I’ll go back.”
Now, there was no more work he needed to do here. YongHo was about to take his laptop and stand up.
Steve grabbed him as he was about to.
“Shall we talk for a little?’

After the talks started from recent issues, in the end, Steve meant for him to come to his team.
I am in charge of developing and managing the core system of the company.
So, you can be treated like a core programmer if you come under me.
Come to me.
‘Recently, there are a lot of love calls.’
Following Jeff Done, even Steve wanted him.
‘I’m not such a cheap guy.’
Compensation didn’t always follow effort.
However, most of the time, some kind of compensation, whether big or small, was given.
Compensation for YongHo’s hard efforts until now were about to be given to him.

***

The gazes following YongHo had changed.
Even before, there existed Asians who were above the rest in Silicon Valley.
Existed.
Just that.
They didn’t attract much attention nor did they receive the gazes of the people.
Software companies were in the end, an organization.
They were assimilated into those organizations and lived the life of a cogwheel.
YongHo was getting out of that cogwheel.
He didn’t live as a part of an organization, but was making an area for himself.
That, was attracting the people.
“I heard you did something good?”
People he didn’t know approached him first and talked to him.
With friendly tones and attitudes; it could be clearly seen that they wanted to become amiable with him.
He was just coming to work and he had already lost count of how many had greeted him.
Rumors were becoming reality with the facts as evidence.

Na DaeBang, who was worked up for a last spurt developing, also came to him with a strange rumor.
“Hyung-nim, you really became a famous guy, eh?”
“What?”
“You’re planned to be promoted to Chief Software Architect next year… Didn’t you hear it?”
YongHo looked at Na DaeBang, confused. What he was doing now was a type of AA(T/N: Raws says that, dunno what it is) (E/N: I think he’s saying he’s a application architect, someone who monitors a system and works with the source code of the system), and he was in charge of developing the application.
However, his position was ‘staff engineer’.
Dave was a ‘senior’, so in truth, he was lower than Dave.
Chief was the highest he could go, so YongHo of course treated it as a joke.
“If you are going to joke like that then go code one more line.”
“It’s real. It’s not me saying it, but there are such rumors within the company.”
Na DaeBang said so while smacking his chest repeatedly as if unjustified. It wasn’t a bad rumor and and this meant that YongHo was being acknowledged for his skills, so he had come here to talk about it to YongHo.
“Okay, I got it. So let’s finish what we’ve started. There aren’t that many days left, you know?”
“Really, Hyung-nim… you keep going: work and work and work… did some work ghost possess you?”
“Should I let it possess you?”
“I respectfully decline.”
After a bout, Na DaeBang went back to his seat.
‘Rumors, rumors eh… well, it’ll calm down soon.’
There were times when it was worse than this in Shinseki. However, it soon calmed down and the rumors disappeared from the people’s memory.
He already knew that reading one more page in the time to mind such things was better.

However, that was YongHo’s mistake.
“Oh, if it isn’t our dear Mr. Chief Software Architect!”
Dave said playfully in salute. It seemed he had heard such rumors from somewhere.
“Wh, what nonsense are you saying?”
“Nothing, didn’t the Chief hear anything?”
“Huh?”
For a moment, YongHo also became expectant.
No way, am I going to rise to Chief level in one go?
Starting from salary to the treatment in the company, everything would change.
“They said to gather right now. There seems to be a technology sharing seminar related to Black Friday. Shouldn’t our dear Chief participate?”
“Y, you wanna die?”
“Did you see that? He looked so expectant. Wow, he’s ambitious. As expected of our dear Chief.”
Jessie and James, who were on the side, were looking at Dave as if he was pathetic.
Ignoring Dave, who was looking for approval, Jessie opened his mouth.
“Let’s go, they said there would be a technology seminar relating to Black Friday preparations. You’re a part of it.”
“Ok, let’s go. Of course we should.”
Seeing that YongHo was standing up, Jessie made a playful expression.
“Why don’t you lead the way, Sir Chief?”
“Hey!”
Chasing the group that was running away, they had arrived at the venue of the seminar in no time.

All programmers within the company had gathered. Those who were away on business trips or were telecommuting participated via video calls.
The reason was for the sharing of the problems that occurred on Black Friday.
Now that they found the problem, they gathered here to not make it happen again by improving on it.
“In this year’s Black Friday, we were focusing on scaling out(bearing load by increasing the number of servers) fast in the DevOps perspective.”
There were presentation materials on the huge screen, and many related programmers were looking at it while focusing.
YongHo was amongst them.
“There’s quite a lot of useful info.”
Whether it was Dave or James, they were all concentrating on the presentation.
Docker.
Netty.
Mybatis.
And et cetera, many software stacks were introduced.
Information on operating a server on a level like this was not acquirable anywhere else.
He could only listen to it here.
Precious gem-like things, which could only be learnt via practical experience, could be felt.

YongHo was in charge of the second session.
The company had requested to take charge of the session due to the charm that the compression module had.
This library was not a prototype but one that proved to have no problems even if it was used commercially.
This was a technology that the company had no choice but to focus on.
Perhaps due to that, many whispers could be heard at the back of the hall.
“P, please sit.”
From the chairman, all Chief-level personnel who had anything to do with technology were coming inside the hall one by one.
The fact that they didn’t participate in the first session made the whispers grow louder.
“YongHo, do your best!”
A loud voice resounded across the hall.
To cheer for YongHo, who was doing the session, Dave had even prepared a banner.
It seemed he had received help from Na DaeBang, as there were huge Korean characters on it as well.

이용호 짱!!(Lee YongHo’s awesome!!)(T/N: Left it as Korean cuz… it says Korean above)

Pff.
YongHo leaked a laugh unintentionally.
At the same time his nervous body loosened up a little.
During that time, the Chief-level personnel and the chairman who had come into the hall had all seated themselves.
YongHo’s presentation started soon.