Webmail Use Increases Over Summer

Harvard’s new Webmail system is thriving this summer, according to figures compiled this week.

Harvard’s new web-based email system has gained significant usage over the summer months as students have been away from campus.

According to Coordinator of Residential Computing Kevin S. Davis ’98, about 100 new users have logged onto the system every day during the summer, nearly quadrupling the average number of daily users since it first became available April 9.

In total, about 12,700 Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) students and faculty have used the system since its debut.

The new system has made checking email less of a problem for students away from campus, including those overseas.

“It has really helped people on the road, who can’t access telnet,” said Let’s Go Peru, Ecuador and Bolivia book editor Megan M. Brumagim ’04, who said her researcher-writers prefer Webmail over other web-based email services. “They don’t have to worry about signing up to another Hotmail account to communicate with me.”

Webmail also has the advantages of making sending and recieving attachments easier, as well as allowing users to forgo the hassle of having to download telnet away from Harvard.

“I’m glad they have Webmail,” said Fiery A. Cushman ’03, who is working in a congressional office in Washington, D.C. “Otherwise, I would have to figure out how to get secure telnet here.”

And with students and faculty away from campus, the summer has been an ideal time for making upgrades to the system. The summer has already seen improvements in Webmail’s speed, which should increase even more in the coming months, according to Davis.

“We knew Webmail would be popular,” he said. “But now, the focus is on making it even faster.”

Webmail was originally slow because it is “more resource-intensive,” Davis said.

“When you’re using a program like Pine or Eudora, your personal computer does much of the work, and Harvard’s systems just forward mail to your PC. With Webmail, on the other hand, the servers have a great deal more to do in processing and handling messages,” he said.

To fix the problem, FAS has given the Computer Services “a significant budget” in order to improve Webmail’s speed by moving it to separate servers from POP/IMAP (Eudora) and telnet services.

Previously, the main FAS Unix cluster handled all secure telnet/Pine sessions, all POP/IMAP sesssions and all Webmail traffic.

The move will improve the speed of all three services, with Webmail considerably faster by September, if not sooner, according to Davis.

“You should already be able to see the difference,” he said of the improvements undertaken so far.

Computer services are also adding more storage units. Reading, delivering and deleting email messages is a resource intensive process which slows down mail access for both Webmail, and for Pine and Eudora users.

But even as Computer Services irons out some wrinkles, many users are satisfied with the service.

The Freshman Dean’s Office (FDO) has already asked that incoming first- years recieve their email user names and passwords over the summer, rather than when they arrive on campus, so that they can begin using their FAS accounts earlier than in the past.

Previously this was not possible, because telnet was generally thought to be too complicated for incoming students to download and use on their own without the technical support offered by Harvard.

Webmail itself was installed at the request of FAS students and faculty, through surveys conducted by computer services every fall.

Along with wireless ethernet, Webmail was by far the most popularly requested service.

Davis estimated that all Houses will be equipped with wireless ethernet by the end of the next academic year.

—Staff writer Eugenia B. Schraa can be reached at schraa@fas.harvard.edu.