On December 10th 2008 there will be some disruption to the Maths IT network and some IT services.
OUCS have to perform emergency work on one of their backbone routers which will effect our network between 0800 and 0830. At the same time some disruptive internal network change overs will take place. The first will be changing the Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) connected to the Dartington House network cabinet. The second will be changing over the power supply to our external switch in preparation for electrical work in St Giles server room. During this time it should be assumed that no IT services will be available. This work has been completed.
Between 0830 and 0900 the electrical supply to the main UPS in the St Giles server room will be turned off to allow electrical testing on the new circuitry in G4. This should not disrupt core services (i.e. home directories, email). This work has been completed.
To allow extra run time on the UPS less important machines will be turned off. The only user facing service will the the Electronic Notice Board (ENB) in St Giles' foyer.
To allow similar electrical work to take place in G5 there will be some disruption to IT services throughout the day. The following user facing machines (with services) will have to be shut down, have their power feed changed, and then be powered back up again:
- Rosemary (MS Exchange email) Completed
- Laptop NAT router Completed
- Chess (Windows Print server)Completed
The following machines need to be shutdown and physically moved which will take some time:
- Zeppelin (TCC video recorder)
- Beast (ENB)Completed
- Skylab (Terminal service for Oracle Financials)Completed
There are a couple of reasons for the electrical work in St Giles' server room. One is that the supply to the room was not adequate for the amount of servers in the room. This caused many power trips in 2007 and early 2008. A work around was put in place which was not a long term solution. An upgraded UPS and dedicated feed has already been installed and many core services have been moved to this.
Early next year a lot of electrical work has to be done in St Giles' which without the electrical upgrades in G4 and G5 would mean that core services would be effected several times for prolonged periods of time.
Any addition information will be added to this news item.