Uninterruptible power sources (UPS) are used to prevent servers from crashing hard when there is a spike or surge in the electrical power system.  The UPS takes the hit and then brings the server down gently after which the UPS restarts the server.  The server in the meantime is totally oblivious to what is happening and so are the users connected to that server.

 

Over the weekend the UPS for the Datatel server took an electrical hit.  The UPS did its job admirably and then died.  At the current time there is not a UPS attached to the Datatel server.  When ITS determined that the UPS was dead, we immediately placed a call to HP to resuscitate the UPS.  HP did not have the crucial replacement part on hand so they ordered a part to be drop shipped to us some time later this morning.  HP told us that this should be a hot swappable procedure and should not affect any Datatel connections.  Hopefully by later this afternoon the UPS and Datatel will be reunited.

 

It started out slowly....on November 18 it was reported that a few individuals experienced dropped Datatel sessions.  This apparently random occurrence then happened again on November 20, and again on November 24.  On each of those days it happed to just a few people.  No other dropped sessions were reported until yesterday when some Datatel connections were again randomly dropped for a few people.  Finding a solution to this problem is akin to finding a needle in a haystack; however, we are working on it.  We need your help to resolve this problem.  If you get a pop-up message from Datatel that states that the Datatel session was closed by the host, please email the date, time and what you were doing to the Help Desk.  If you remember any incident in the recent past where a Datatel connection was dropped, please email the Help Desk with the above information.

 

In the meantime, tomorrow morning we will be changing some connections to blades in the catalyst, the brains and life blood of the network.  We are not sure that this is the root cause of the problem,  but it will be one of many attempts that we take to try to track down the cause of the problem.