In order to address the problems that began with IMAP, POP3, and Webmail Slowness, we are tentatively scheduling email server maintenance for Monday, 21 November. The new disk array will be installed at this time. During the hours 7PM to 2 AM, all email service will be unavailable.
Category Archives: Scheduled Outages
Mail Server Maintenance
All email service will be unavailable from 5PM to 6PM today. Firmware upgrades will be applied to address Webmail, IMAP, and POP3 slowness first noted in this entry: http://www2.ups.edu/ois/nssg/blog/maintenance/archives/000449.html
SAN Maintenance and New Installations
On Saturday we will restructure the fibre channel fabric by replacing the existing 8 port switch with two 24 port switches—32 total ports enabled. As part of the restructuring, the database systems (Lenel, Rainier, Crystal, and Grace) will be down. The SAN and tape library will also be down during the restructuring.
We will be attempting a variety of hardware related tasks during the down time:
1. Turning the two Dell cabinets 180 degrees to provide better air flow.
2. Reworking the network, fibre, and power cables in the Dell cabinets for better access.
3. Migrating and rezoning all fibre channel connections to the new switches.
4. Installing a new HBA in Rainier and upgrading the PowerPath license.
5. Adding additional systems to the fibre channel fabric (Exchange Servers, AX100 appliance, Veronica, Merlin2 and Alexandria).
We estimate that this will take approximately eight hours. We will be starting at 8:00 am on Saturday, June 11
Network upgrade
The planned OS upgrade of core network equipment on Sunday was not as smooth as planned. Two systems had difficulty with the upgrade and required a reboot: the mail server, and the Oracle development server. Otherwise, the upgrade was a success.
As a result of the problem, we have a better understanding of the upgrade process for future upgrades.
Web Server emergency maintenance
The University web server will be down during the morning of August 31, 2004 for some emergency maintenance related to a hard disk failure.
Web Server Upgrades Scheduled
On July 13th, the University web server will be upgraded to address several security vulnerabilities. The upgrades will take place between 4:00 PM and 7 PM. The components involved are:
- the web server software itself
- the PHP scripting engine
- the application server that will power the new Ingeniux Content Management System
A brief (ca. 10 second) outage may occur between 6:45 and 7:00 PM. Otherwise, no interruption in service should occur.
Decommission RESOURCES domain
The RESOURCES domain will be decommissioned between 8am and 9am on Tuesday June 1, 2004. RESOURCES is the last Microsft Windows NT domain supported by OIS. All easily identifiable workstations have been removed from this domain. Any workstations in the this domain after June 1 will experience problems logging in to the active Microsoft Windows 2000 and 2003 domain structures. If you experience problems logging in and believe your workstation may actually be a member of the RESOURCES domain please contact the OIS Help Desk, helpdesk@ups.edu, (253) 879-8585.
Web Server Hardware Maintenance
Additional disk space will be added to the University’s web server during the OIS scheduled Preventative Maintenance window, 6-8 AM, Wednesday, 19 May. The web server will be down approximately from 6-6:30 AM.
Blackboard Upgrade
The Blackboard server will be unavailable starting at midnight, Monday, 17 May. During this time, OIS staff will upgrade the existing server from Blackboard version 5.5.1 to version 6.1. Three days have been reserved for the upgrade process: 17, 18, and 19 May. Blackboard services will be restored by midnight, 20 May, but may be restored sooner. Check the OIS maintenance site for details during the upgrade window.
Interruption in WebMail Service
WebMail service will be interrupted for approximately 15 minutes from 9:00am to 9:15 am on Wednesday, April 28, 2004. This interruption is needed to reconfigure WebMail and give it a dedicated network interface on the University’s email server for WebMail’s imap sessions.
Software updates
The following servers will be down during the regularly scheduled preventative maintenance (pm) window, 7-9am for software updates:
mail
camano
whidbey
rainier
crystal
whistler
charon
bigben
These updates are recommended software patches to the operating system.
During the pm window the following services will not be available,
electronic mail
CASCADE web
CASCADE/SUMMIT/RIDGE databases
Corporate Time
Modem pool
VPN
Web Server Upgrade Scheduled
The University’s web server will be upgraded to the latest version of the Apache web server (2.0.49) as part of the Office of Information Services’ Preventative Maintenance window.
Intermittent short outages may occur from 6-8 AM.
Possible Internet Outage
ELI Internet Customer Support Notice:
————————————
Description:
Electric Lightwave, Inc will be installing a new
PA-2T3 card in the router; GW01:STTL in Seattle, WA. We will be doing this on March 26, 2004 at 5:00am PST. During this maintenance, customers may experience an outage of approximately 30 minutes. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.
Start: The outage will occur on March 26, 2004 at 5:00am PST.
Duration: The outage will last approximately 30 minutes.
Affected: gw01.sttl
Sendmail upgrade
Beginning on Monday March 22, 2004 we will begin upgrading the University mailer daemons. The daemons are the applications that allow users to send, receive and manage their e-mail. There will be brief interruptions during the week of March 22, 2004.
If you encounter errors or problems, users are advised to wait ten minutes and try again. If the problem is not corrected, please contact the OIS Help Desk, trouble@ups.edu or X8585.
SurgeFTP server installed on main web server
The SurgeFTP ftp server replaces WU-ftpd on the main web server. This is to limit viewing of files outside users’ home directories.
This was performed as part of normal monthly Preventative Maintenance.