As detailed in the email sent on 8/3 (included below) the Hill Center machine room will be shut down for maintenance this weekend (8/20-8/21).  Since the primary SAS servers reside in this room, several core SAS services will be unavailable for the duration of the outage.  We will begin shutting down our services at 5:30 AM on Saturday and will bring them back online as soon a we're notified that power has been restored to the room.

During the outage, the following services will be unavailable:

  •     Novell Servers (File and Print services)
  •     Zimbra e-mail services (No mail will be lost.  Mail will be held until servers are back online)
  •     SAS Listserv System (No mail will be lost. Mail will be held until servers are back online)
  •     Copiers (services required for printing/copying and scanning will be unavailable)
  •     Imagenow
  •     SAS Project Management System
  •     SAS Secure Web Application Servers (All apps running on secure.sas).  Examples include the SAS REQUEST SYSTEM, myMajor, myAdvisor, RUScheduler, etc)
  •     SAS Selected Linux Servers (stargate, rogue, statcalc1)
  •     Webdesign Server
  •     Old Math Mail Server (will not impact Rutgers Connect)
  •     SAS Hosted User Web Pages in the following departments: CCAI, Econ, History, Philosophy, Political Science, Statistics
  •     Editing of Joomla sites will be disabled
  •     Rutgers Optimality Archive
  •     Math Department Webwork server

Please review the email from OIT below for the full list of central services that will be impacted.
We will be moving SAS hosted websites to an alternate location on Thursday night 8/18.  Once we've moved these sites to our alternate location, edits to the webpage will be unavailable until the primary servers come back online.

Anyone attempting to access our secure web applications will receive a page notifying them of the outage.

Unfortunately these are the only services that can be easily moved to an alternate location for this outage.

We understand that there is never a good time for these systems to be down for an extended period but this maintenance must be performed and this is the date and time that met with the widest approval.

We will keep everyone updated through our Twitter and Facebook pages.  I encourage everyone to check these pages for updates on our status throughout the weekend.

Thanks
- Tom

 Email from OIT:

Members of the Rutgers Community,

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) will be performing the Hill Center Data Center upgrade, which will require electric in the Data Center to be shut down at various intervals from7:00 AM on Saturday, August 20 to 5:00 PM on Sunday, August 21, 2016. This is required to accommodate greater research computing capacity and to improve reliability.

Please Note: If there are any issues with the Hill Center Data Center upgrade on August 20 and August 21, 2016, OIT will complete the Data Center upgradethe following weekend, 7:00 AM Saturday, August 27 until 5:00 PM on Sunday, August 28, 2016.

OIT is committed to improving the quality and reliability of IT services.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause.

This shut down involves the following:

·          Any Hill DC hosted equipment and services dependent on the electrical and mechanical systems will be out of service. 

·          All data center hosted systems and services will need to be shut down before we disable the data center power distribution and HVAC services.  

·          Once power is shutdown, the building must be vacated and remain unoccupied, except for the construction team, during this event.   This includes theNetwork Operations Center (NOC) and HelpDesk (Note: The Help Desk will still have the ability to receive calls during the shutdown).

·          There will be no power for elevators or life safety systems. 

·          There will be manned fire watches in place for the duration.  

·          Given the considerable activity in and around the data center, andelectrical and mechanical rooms, access to the building will be limited to personnel directly involved with the construction and building security.  This will help avoid life safety issues and allow the construction team to complete thework in a timely manner. 

The central services listed below will be unavailable from 7:00 AM on Saturday, August 20 to 5:00 PM on Sunday, August 21, 2016. 


- Eden Services 
- Mailman (ad hoc mass emailing service) 
- RAMS (Rutgers official mass emailing service) 
- RATS
- CMS/Drupal (UCM website hosting service) 
- Certain Enterprise Client Services Hosted Applications
- Sakai Course Management and Collaboration Services

Apps.rutgers.edu
- RUMail Collaboration Services 
- RCI Email Reading (Webmail, IMAP, POP, Pine) 
- RCI Hosted Web Sites 
- RCI Hosted Virtual Mail domains 
- Other RCI Services 
- Nagios Service Monitoring

- Some network services in the Hill Center will be unavailable

Hosted Services for the following Academic and Administrative departments may be degraded or unavailable:

www.rutgers.edu

- Climatology

- Dining Services

- Division of Continuing Studies

- Enrollment Management

- Finance - Procurement

- Housing

- Information Technology Services

- Internal Auditing

- Planning and Public Policy

- School of Arts and Sciences (SAS)

- School of Communications and Information (SCI)

Hosted Services for the following Research departments may be degraded or unavailable:

- Chemistry / PDB / Proteomics

- Office of Advanced Research Computing (OARC)

- RDI2

- Statistics

 The following services are NOT affected by this upgrade activity on Saturday, August 20, 2016 and Sunday, August 21, 2016 (note: this is not an exhaustive list):

- Athletics

- EAS Services (payroll, registration and other administrative services) 
- EAS LDAP (authentication services)

- EAS Kerberos

- MyRutgers
- Central TD services will be unaffected by this maintenance. 
- Internet services will not be affected. 
- VoIP/Aastra System 
- OIT Computer Lab logins and applications 
- RUWireless /RUWireless Secure 
- Pharos printing on all campuses. 
- Non-OIT Wireless Services 
- RBHS (UMDNJ Legacy) Services 
- ScarletMail (Google Apps for Education @ Rutgers) 

- RUConnect (Microsoft Office 365)

- Shibboleth

The network uplinks for these buildings on Busch campus should be NOT be affected:

- BTN Networks for Busch Stadium and Yurkak Field

- Busch Gas Pump Area

- Busch Motor Pool 
- Busch Visitor Center

- Electrical Engineering
- Emergency Services 3569 
- Facilities Maintenance 3527 
- Facilities Maintenance 3530

- Fire and Emergency Services Central Heating Plant

- SERC

- Serin Physic Laboratory

- Sonny Werblin Recreation Center 
- Yurcak Soccer Field

- Newark Campus network connectivity to New Brunswick

- Newark Campus RUWireless Access Points

If you have any questions or concerns regarding this upgrade please contact:

-        The OIT New Brunswick Help Desk at: 848-445-HELP (4357) or 

-        The OIT Newark Help Desk at: 973-353-5083 or 

-        The OIT Camden Help Desk at: 856-225-6274 or 

Thank you,

Bill Lansbury

University Director

OIT, Enterprise Infrastructure