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At approximately 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, the Xcel Energy power transformer feeding the West Bank Office Building (WBOB) exploded and subsequently caught fire. A number of campus-wide systems and services that are housed in that building were unavailable until approximately 10 p.m. OIT proactively shut down many of these systems in order to achieve a stable power situation.
Once a consistent power supply was established, OIT staff worked throughout the day and evening to bring the systems back online.
By roughly 10 p.m., all critical OIT enterprise servers and applications were back online and verified as functioning properly.
The WebMail Pro and WebMail 3.0 decommission schedule has been extended to August 4, 2008. These systems were initially set to be decommissioned July 1.
On Monday, June 30, e-mail users were temporarily unable to send messages with desktop e-mail clients (such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook), although they were still able to receive messages and could still send messages through GopherMail. This problem occurred because OIT outgoing e-mail authentication failed. OIT was not aware of the issue until trouble tickets were opened by customer service representatives on Monday morning.
OIT has taken steps to prevent this problem from happening in the future including the addition of another monitor that will automatically check the operational status of desktop initiated outgoing e-mail service. The new monitor will check the system every several minutes to verify that messages are being sent and received as expected.
This issue has been resolved on the server side; however, if you are still experiencing trouble sending e-mails contact 1-HELP at (612) 301-4357 to get help troubleshooting the issue with your client.
At approximately 10:45 a.m. on Tuesday, July 1, the Xcel Energy power transformer feeding the West Bank Office Building (WBOB) exploded and subsequently caught fire. A number of campuswide systems and services that are housed in that building were unavailable until approximately 10 p.m. OIT proactively shut down many of these systems in order to achieve a stable power situation. Some of the affected systems include the following:
-- E-mail (for some users)
-- PeopleSoft Campus Solutions
-- UM Reports
-- WebVista
-- UMContent
-- NetFiles
-- Enterprise Financial System
Once a consistent power supply was established, OIT staff worked throughout the day and evening to bring the systems back online. Check the System Status page at: http://systemstatus.umn.edu for up-to-date information about OIT systems, or call 1-HELP at (612) 301-4357.
On Monday, June 30th, e-mail users were temporarily unable to send messages with desktop e-mail clients (such as Mozilla Thunderbird and Microsoft Outlook), although they were still able to receive messages. This problem occurred because desktop e-mail clients were unable to authenticate to smtp.umn.edu.
The authenticated SMTP issue has been resolved for all but a handful of cases. If you are still unable to send e-mail using an e-mail client, try rebooting your computer (to flush the ssh cache from the software) and try again. Call 1-HELP if you are still have problems after rebooting.
For updates, visit the System Status page.
The Office of Information Technology (OIT) plans to decommission the FileNET Web Content Management (WCM) application on Dec. 31. Units that are currently utilizing FileNET will either need to convert their existing sites to UMContent, which is the replacement application for FileNET, or move to a non-centrally supported solution.
On Thursday June 5, at approximately 3 P.M. Gopher Messaging servers froze and required a restart. Gopher Messaging services, including voicemail access and auto attendants, were unavailable for nearly an hour. Our vendor is investigating the problem. We apologize for any inconveniences the outage caused. We would like to remind users to check the System Status page for all system updates.
OIT's software license program office has moved from its Shepherd Labs location to its new location at 2218 University Ave. SE. Software duplication (fee involved) and borrowed software or media previously handled at Shepherd Labs now is handled at the new location.
Novell Netware users are reminded that OIT no longer will provide technical support for Novell systems after Monday, Dec. 1. Since central Active Directory has been deployed at the University, Novell Netware server usage has dropped sharply. Departments wishing to continue using Novell systems should find alternate service hosting. OIT is committed to smooth departmental migration to central Active Directory, offering guides, training, and assistance throughout the process. Questions should be directed to umnad@umn.edu. For more information, visit www.umn.edu/umnad.
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