noticeboard.ru.ac.za

During the course of yesterday (26 November), one of the UPSes in our Barratt data centre failed. This resulted in equipment located in the data centre -- including the distribution router for the North campus sector -- to loose power at about 11PM last night.

All buildings in the North campus sector will have lost access to the network. This sector encompasses the area bounded by Prince Alfred Street, South Street, African Street and Somerset Street (map).

Power was restored at about 7.30AM this morning. However, the UPS fault still exists and thus this sector remains at risk of further unplanned outages.

In addition, all services hosted in the Barratt data centre were (and are) affected. This data centre primarily provides backup services for central University services hosted elsewhere.

In order to partially mitigate this risk, we will be moving the main North campus distribution router onto a different UPS over lunch. During this emergency maintenance, network access (including Internet, file and print services, and IP telephony) will be unavailable in all buildings located in the North campus sector.

Work will start at 13:15, and should be completed by 13:45. You may need to reboot your computer and/or phone when you return from lunch.

The UPS we're using has limited run time and capacity. In the event of a power outage, the North campus sector will retain networking for no longer than half an hour. However, the UPS will provide protection against brownouts and other short outages.

Barratt building itself, as well as the services provided from Barratt data centre, remain on the faulty UPS. These remain unprotected and at risk of an outage.