Moonpia, the employment story of web novel writers

Recently, web novels have become very popular and can be found on various platforms. Among the many platforms, there is a place called a portal of employment for artists. This is Moonpia. Since almost all genres of web novels are serialized, the number of users is large, so it is important to maintain a stable service.

It is said that Moonpia has improved service stability by monitoring almost all of WTAP's products. We met with CTO Lee Sang-min and talked about how Watab is being used.

Introduction: Introduction to customers and the state of infrastructure

Please introduce Moonpia companies and the services they provide.

The beginning of Moonpia is Go! It was a web novel serialization site centered on the martial arts genre called Moorim. It was a space where they cheered and gave feedback on each other's martial arts novels, but over time, novels of various genres began to be serialized. Since it embraces various genres, the name was changed to Moonpia when the corporation was established in 2013, and currently covers more than 21 novels of all genres. Not long ago, just 10 years have passed since the formal corporation was established.

There aren't many places to freely serialize web novels, but Moonpia is a platform that helps anyone who wants to write a web novel to become a web novel writer. It can also be said that it is a letter of employment for artists. (Laughter) Currently, there are thousands of artists working at Moonpia a year.

Please tell me about the current infrastructure configuration of Moonpia.

It's a bit difficult to tell you the details of the infrastructure configuration, but let me just say that we are currently providing cloud-based services.

Challenge: From introduction to WhaTap to user reviews

Have you used other monitoring services?

I've tried various monitoring services. I have used almost every monitoring solution on the market, such as open source monitoring and commercial monitoring.

But why did you choose Watab?

First of all, I tend to think of programs as living organisms. Starting with CTO Kim Sung-jo, I saw that Watap continues to develop and change so that a living organism called WhaTap can grow. Therefore, I was able to use it with confidence, and it was nice to see a passion for reflecting or improving technology as much as possible when requesting technical improvements.

What Watap's monitoring service are you currently using?

Application monitoring, server monitoring, browser monitoring, URL monitoring, and even DB monitoring. I'm using almost all the monitoring services provided by WTAP.

Why did CTO introduce browser monitoring himself after joining Moonpia?

Apparently, I wanted to improve the user experience and the quality of service. I wanted developers to be able to further develop the Moonpia service by directly checking and analyzing the response speed and UI performance experienced by users.

In fact, at the beginning of the introduction, the browser monitoring heatmap looked like a tsunami, but now it's blue and stable like a calm lake. I am very proud to be able to see the stability of the service with my own eyes while watching such changes.

How much do you think current employees understand and use Watap monitoring?

I believe that our employees fully understand and use Watap monitoring at least 70%.

I think the purpose of using monitoring services is to quickly find problematic services or projects and take action. As soon as I joined Moonpia, I first started separating projects. Because when projects are grouped together, it's not easy to find where the problem lies. However, since projects are separated and made to look good, they are more useful, so if a problem occurs, you can quickly find out where it happened.

I think one of the reasons why employees can have such a high level of understanding of use is that engineers visit in person and conduct monitoring usage training tailored to the customer environment. Of course, online inquiries are good, so it's easy to ask questions.

Please share your experience of solving problems with WhaTap.

I use Watap very well (laughs), but I solve almost 95% of all problems with Watab. The notification function is excellent, so it helps you to be the first to recognize when a failure occurs, and then identify where the problem occurred and take action. In most cases, the problem was solved with WhaTap. Also, I always keep a tab on the main office monitor for quick understanding

If so, what is the feature that CTO uses the most in the Watap service?

I use heat maps and transaction maps a lot, which are the most representative functions in application monitoring. Among them, one of the most useful features is the statistical function SQL and error. In particular, since the SQL function can also check tables, it is also very helpful when calculating usage capacity based on tables. Also, I use a lot of analytical metrics charts.

Also, in the case of recently introduced browser monitoring, heatmaps were used the most. As mentioned above, every time a problem occurred, I was able to find the cause and reason through a heatmap. Also, since the client IP can be checked, it was also possible to identify abnormal users. I think the advantage of Watap is that you can check the problem from various angles.

I think you're really making good use of Watab. If the CTO has any tips for using Watap, can you share them with others?

I'll share my own tips on how to be beautiful by my boss using Watab. You can make good use of the flex board right away. “I'm not envious of a well-made flexboard one-column dashboard.” You could say that. (Laughter) When it comes to monitoring, the most important thing is to see everything about our service at a glance. Therefore, it is very important to make a good flex board, and if you make it well, you can be beautiful by your boss. Note that one method is to use a honeycomb chart to configure a flex board.

Management: Why monitoring is recommended for companies about to launch new services

Why do you recommend Watab to companies considering implementing monitoring?

If you're thinking about introducing monitoring, there are probably a lot of different reasons; if you're thinking about foreign products and tabs, I'd like you to think about whether a foreign engineer with the opposite time zone can take care of everything until a problem occurs, and that there are no engineers who can run to the company to help. Watap's customer support is excellent.

Finally, I think the products that need to be introduced may differ depending on the purpose of monitoring. Since Watap is a product that quickly identifies the root cause of a problem and helps a lot, I strongly recommend that companies with the purpose of finding the root cause and root it out when a failure occurs.

I heard that you introduced Watab while creating an online course. What's the reason for that?

WTAP is the only domestic integrated monitoring platform that can check performance above all else. If they think it's a necessary feature, they update it as soon as possible, and it's obvious that the company is active in development. So I use it with confidence and can recommend it to others.

Can you explain a little bit about the content of this course and recommended Watap?

I wanted to gather and summarize all the knowledge I know about performance so far, but after worrying about the volume and overlap with previously published books, I felt that shooting online lectures was better for transferring knowledge, so I decided to shoot online lectures.

The course will teach you everything from what performance is, what tools to use, and how to troubleshoot. Starting with the definition of performance, we work together on how to check bottlenecks, how to check performance, test methods, and even practice. I think you can give lectures and think about all aspects of performance engineering, such as Java GC, things to pay attention to during development, troubleshooting methods, and service performance diagnosis methods.

I don't think it will be of much help to students who are currently studying. I think it will be very helpful for developers or infrastructure engineers who have been developing for at least 1 year. I especially recommend it to managers who need to talk to developers about IT performance.