Moving large amounts of the university’s data may lead to IT service interruptions
Due to a combination of hardware and software errors, very large amounts of data (300 TB) must be moved to new servers to avoid data loss. As a result, users of AU’s IT systems and services may experience IT service interruptions for a few weeks starting on Tuesday 19 June.
UPDATE - 4 JULY 2018:
The process of moving servers and data from the faulty operating environment is now finished. No data was lost in the process.
During the next couple of months, AU IT will implement the new solutions. They do not expect any IT interruptions in consequence.
AU IT thanks all for their patience.
UPDATE – 22 JUNE 2018:
AU IT is approx. halfway through the process of moving data, and the work will continue in week 26 (25 - 29 June). AU IT does not expect this to significantly affect work at AU in general. Only a short downtime is required for most of the remaining servers in order to move the data, and the affected IT systems only have a few users.
AU IT expects that the process of moving data from the affected virtual operating environments will be completed by the end of this week.
Read more about the process and find updates here https://serviceinfo.au.dk/en.
AU IT has started to move data which means that some systems may be inaccessible. Even though, it is a critical situation, AU IT expects the move to take place without significant inconvenience to staff and students.
Follow the situation at https://serviceinfo.au.dk/en - the site will be updated as much as possible.
The problems is that during the weekend of 16 and 17 June, based on a detailed analysis, AU IT concluded that a critical combination of two independent problems in one of the university’s virtual operating environments makes it necessary to move large amounts of data (300 TB) to new servers. AU IT expects that it will take approx. two weeks to move the data. The move will be planned to ensure that staff and students will be affected as little as possible.
Unfortunately, it is not possible to create a list of all the IT systems and services which will be affected. According to AU IT, several systems which are used for administration and research support will not be affected. Other systems such as Exchange (Outlook) will be affected to some extent e.g. the response time may increase. It will also not be possible to access a number of systems while data is being moved. The downtime depends on the amount of data in the system in question. Moving data may therefore take from a few minutes to several hours.
System owners and the people responsible for the affected servers will be informed directly by email.
Questions?
If you have any questions, please contact your local IT support team. Find contact information.