On Saturday and Sunday, 2 & 3 April 2016, staff from UIS, Estate Management and their contractors will be carrying out electrical work in the Soulsby data centre. This will require a complete shutdown of all equipment in the room.
16:55 03-Apr-2016:The maintenance work has been completed and systems are being brought back online. Some systems will not be returned to service until the morning of Monday 4 April.
Why is this work taking place?
The work has two aims:
- to fix a problem with the way the air conditioning controls handle a brief loss of power;
- to complete essential maintenance on the backup power systems.
When is the work scheduled?
Most systems will be shut down soon after 17:00 on Friday, 1 April; the work in the room will start at 08:00 on Saturday, 2 April, when electrical power will be shut off.
We expect the work to be completed by 18:00 on Sunday, 3 April but hope to have completed it sooner.
What are the effects on services I might be using?
Most UIS services will continue to be provided from our other data centres. Some services will be running at slightly reduced capacity and we will be running in a period of slightly increased risk of disruption to services. We do not anticipate there being any problems.
Other customers, whose servers and services are hosted in the data centre, have been contacted and are making their own arrangements.
UIS services that will be unavailable
The following UIS services will be unavailable during this work:
- CamTools
- Electronic Document Management System (EDMS)
- Employee Self Service (ESS) did not automatically switch to one of the other locations as expected and will be unavailable for the duration of the work
- Talks.cam
In addition, services operated by other institutions using the UIS Hosted Server Service in the Soulsby centre will be unavailable.
08:27 3-Apr-2016: We are aware of delays in processing some email.
16:55 3-Apr-2016: We believe that the delays with processing some email are starting to clear and email caught up in the backlog is starting to be delivered.
University Library services
Library services across the University will be unavailable during the downtime period. These include:
- The online Newton and LibrarySearch catalogues will not be available to search and locate material in libraries. In the University Library, COPAC will be available but only lists items held in the main UL
- Libraries will be unable to issue and return books via the online library management system (this will include self-service issue terminals). Libraries that are staffed (depending on local practice) will issue and return books manually during the downtime. Online requesting of items will not be available
- Search for articles using LibrarySearch+ will be available but access to full text may be impaired by unavailability of EZProxy.
- Off campus access to subscribed electronic resources via the EZProxy service will be unavailable. During the downtime period, off campus access to online resources will be available directly from publishers websites (ie those that offer Shibboleth/Institutional login options)
- Other library services including the DSpace Institutional repository, JANUS (the archives catalogue), the Digital Library, Virtual Exhbitions, library websites and a range of other services hosted by the library will be offline during the downtime period.
What are you doing?
The electronics controlling the air conditioning units are being replaced. The replacement system should ensure that the air conditioning restarts in the event of future power disruption.
The electrical equipment that controls mains and backup power distribution in the room will undergo full maintenance.
Last updated 17:00 on 03-Apr-2016 by ihc22