ALERT: Global Network Outage Planned
The Springfield network core will be shut down during upgrades and
replacements on August 5th
and 6th. All services will be down including, but not limited
to, email, Internet access, dialup modems, print servers, web servers, and
Windows NT
domain login services.
All users at Springfield, West Plains, and Mt. Grove are potentially
affected. Intervals will
exist when part of the facilities are functional, but users cannot be guaranteed
uninterrupted services until midnight on Sunday, August 6th.
July 24, 2000
Overview
Several critical devices comprising a significant part of Missouri State University-Springfield's
core network will be removed from service and replaced with a new and faster
machine that has more features and better flexibility. Unfortunately, this
replacement process is quite massive and will require all or part of the
Springfield network to be down during the transition. All Springfield file servers will be
shut down and rewired into the new device. The other core locations will
have their fiber optic feeds disconnected from the old devices and then connected to the new core.
Most of the rewiring will be performed on Saturday starting at about 8:00 a.m.
with some services gradually becoming available by the afternoon. Users
may use the network at their own risk during this time, but network stability
cannot be guaranteed until Sunday night at midnight. The other four major core
sites will receive operating system upgrades some time between Saturday and
Sunday afternoon, which will interrupt services again. Continued rewiring
and fiber optic changes will make the network unstable during the entire upgrade
process.
During the Springfield upgrade:
 | All Cheek Hall file servers will be shutdown, including:
 | Web Servers - there will be no access to Missouri State University web pages. |
| File Servers - there will be no logging into common file storage
spaces. |
| Mail Servers - there will be no sending or receiving of email or calendar
updates. |
| Print Servers - there will be no printing through file server print
queues. |
|
| Dialup servers will be down:
| Modems may or may not answer. |
| You may not be able to log in. |
| If you are able to login in, you still may not be able to connect to
anything. |
| If you are able to login in, you will likely be disconnected. |
|
| Internet access for Springfield and Mt. Grove will be down. |
| Springfield networks will be isolated from each other.
| Users in one building will not be able to connect to private file servers or other
resources in another building. |
| Access to applications in one building will be isolated from users in
another building. For example, the ticketing file server resides in
Performing Arts, but tickets are sometime sold in the Student
Union. This will not be possible during the conversion. |
|
Mt. Grove
The Mt. Grove campus is connected to the Springfield core through Blair
Shannon and Mt. Grove's Internet access is obtained through a router in Cheek
Hall. This router is being replaced and zone work will occur in both Cheek
and Blair Shannon. Therefore, Mt. Grove will suffer the same outages as
Springfield.
West Plains
West Plains just today received its Internet access directly through MOREnet
instead of through Springfield before connecting to MOREnet. This will allow more of
West Plains campus services to survive this outage, but some services will still
be unavailable.
The Internet name resolution (or DNS - Domain Name System) servers on the Springfield
campus will be down. Since all three Missouri State University campuses depend on
Springfield for DNS, West Plains will receive slower name resolution than before
-- even to the point of some pages timing out. In the week prior to the
conversion, we will attempt to change DHCP
(Dynamic Host Configuration Protocol) leases to point to our backup servers in
Rolla or Columbia. This change would enable West Plains to use their new, private Internet pipe to receive name resolution from off
campus and thus avoid any repercussions in this area due to the Springfield
upgrade.
West plains, however, still depends exclusively on Springfield for DHCP
services. If a new computer is attached to the network, it normally sends
out a request to a central server for appropriate configuration
information. It receives this information from one of two servers located
in Springfield and configures itself accordingly. Leases must also be
renewed at least once every seven days or they expire and can no longer be
used. Therefore, when the Springfield core goes down, DHCP services will
not be available to any Missouri State University user at West Plains, Mt. Grove, or
Springfield. West Plains users who wish to work over the weekend should be
sure their leases are renewed on Friday to guarantee they will not need any DHCP
services over the weekend. Doing so should allow
West Plains users to be almost 100% functional during the outages.
West Plains also depends exclusively on Springfield for dialup
validation. Even though the dialup server in West Plains will accept
connections during the upgrade, it will not be able to validate users, which
will cause it to drop the connections. Therefore, West Plains dialup will
effectively be unavailable even though the modems will answer.
Summary
The entire network will be in a constant state of flux during this transition
and we highly
recommend that you not try to use it in any way. If you attempt to do so,
please note that you do so at your own risk. Should you successfully log
in, please be sure to save files often,
or attempt to download Internet content for viewing offline. Such measures
will
reduce frustrations, but not as much as simply taking the weekend off.
If you have any questions, concerns, or other comments, please contact Mark
Harsen for more information.
