I appeciate the hard work that went into the restoration of the campus e-mail system. I am glad that the problems seem to be solved.

One quote from our president in this message caught my eye: "the best possible Information Technology services to the campus that UTC can afford" Not to look a gift horse in the mouth, but I am reminded of the retirement incentive package recently offered to old dogs like myself. That was a golden parachute fit only for easing the descent into retirement for some creature with, say, the body weight of a field mouse. If we match up available funds for "information technology services" in the near future, we are likely to end up with a carrier pigeon system. Pray for a robust economy in Tennessee next year.

Mike Russell 

-----Original Message-----
From: Monty Wilson <[log in to unmask]>
To: [log in to unmask] 
Date: Fri, 30 May 2003 22:52:08 -0400
Subject: [UTCSTAFF] Email Service Operational

The campus email has been operational for the past 5  hours and 25 minutes
and it appears that all the damage caused to the system by the campus power
outage on Wednesday has been repaired. Over 3000 emails have been delivered
since full service was restored.  This outage caused  a very complex
corruption of the  email system.  I would like to  thank the campus
community for your patience during this service interruption and would like
to apologize for all the inconvenience caused by the up and down email
service. Reliable Information Technology services are critical to the daily
operation of the University and we are dedicated to providing the most
reliable systems possible.

 I would like to thank and express my appreciation to the UTC IT  Enterprise
System Team of  Tony Parsley, Sandra Steakley, Don Elrod and Ryan Seal for
all the midnight oil they expended in getting the service restored. Their
dedication to working into the morning hours with Novell Technical support
to get  the system operation demonstrates their commitment to service to the
campus. They followed all the proper steps to restore service  as quickly as
possible and to get Novell Technical support  involved with the problem in a
very professional manner.  Without their extensive  technical skills and
determination to restore the system as soon as humanly possible, the campus
would still be without email service. The team will continue to monitor the
system over the week end.

 For additional details  please  continue:   The Information Technology
Division has made extensive efforts to improve the operational reliability
of  email, the campus network computing and telecommunication systems.
These efforts include the installation of redundant power supplies in all
servers, redundant power supplies and control modules in major network
equipment and dual homing of Internet service.  In addition to the redundant
equipment an uninterrupted power system (UPS) for all computer equipment,
backed up by a 150 KW automatic start diesel generator which was installed
two years ago to insure the Computer Center remains operational during a
campus power outage.  The Computer Center did not experience a power outage
on Wednesday;  ASIS,  Banner,  VTLS library system,  NetStorage, FTP. Web
Pages, Netdrive,  Blackboard, CECASUN, SRV1, and our connections to the
Internet remained operational to allow off campus students, faculty, and
staff access to all the services  they are authorized to access from
anywhere they have Internet service.  The UTC homepage, www.utc.edu,
remained operational on the world wide web. Thanks also to Warren Simpson of
Facilities Planning for checking the operation of the generator during the
power outage.

When power was restored to  the campus, the restarting of personal computers
and servers not in the computer center  apparently created such a "network
traffic storm" that some of the databases that operate the email were
corrupted and caused the email system to demonstrate the up and down
operation we have experienced the past day and a half.  According to the
Novell technician, this was the largest number of this type of errors Novell
has seen for this type of problem. The OneNet system has a considerable
amount of redundant power supplies,  clustered servers, dual processors, and
redundant RAID disk storage to ensure continued operation however  these
were apparently overcome by the "network traffic storm".  The removal of
this corruption required a very tedious process to insure that other
services were not affected. UTC is very fortunate to have the technical
staff that has the skills and perseverance to be able to resolve  a complex
challenge of this magnitude.

The Enterprise System Team, along with other members of the Information
Technology staff are  in the process of identifying specific actions  we can
take to improve the robustness and reliability of the OneNet and all
included services.  The IT Staff will be happy to provide anyone on campus a
detailed tour of the computer center to show the redundant systems and
answer any questions regarding Computer or Network operations.

I can assure  the campus  community that your  IT staff understands the
importance of email and all the computing and network services we provide to
the campus. Our Mission is to provide the Information Technology support to
enhance teaching and learning on the campus.  We will continue, to
paraphrase  Dr. Shumaker,  " provide the best possible Information
Technology services to the campus that UTC can afford".

Monty

Monty Wilson
University of Tennessee at Chattanooga
Assistant Vice Chancellor
Information Technology
615 McCallie Ave 4054
Chattanooga TN 37403
423 425-4039  FAX 423 425-2200
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