News - Nov 2006

Nov 11 2005 - The ADSM network backup system has been fixed and is now working again. Anticipate it to be a bit overloaded and slower than usual for about the next day as it catches up with a considerable backlog of neglected backup work.

If your desktop machines use the automatic scheduler, you might want to check that it did not time out during the outage. You should restart the scheduler. The easiest way to insure that the scheduler is running properly is to simply reboot your whole machine.

The problem was resolved when an astute Quantum engineer realized that we were running an older version of tape library microcode - which was known to cause problems with Tivoli Storage Manager when used with the additional tape bins which we had just installed. After downloading the latest version of the microcode, everything started working again.

Thank you for your patience during this outage, which went on for far longer than any of us would have liked. This successful resolution is a huge relief.

Nov 11 2005 - We regret the extended outage for the ADSM network backup system. We know this has inconvenienced many of you, as it has also interfered with the work of a number of ACCC staff members.

This started with an upgrade - to add more slots for tapes to the Quantum P7000 tape library, so that we could accomodate a larger number of growing machines being backed up. What we now think is that this upgrade uncovered a long-hidden hardware problem in one of the SCSI buses within the library Tuesday afternoon. Then everything fell apart, and we lost access to all of the tapes and all of the tape drives. While it at first appeared to be a software issue, we now think it is more likely an issue with either hardware or cables.

This is not a disaster - we, and Tivoli Support, are confident that once we figure out what is broken, and fix it, all previously backed up data stored on tape will be back and available for restore.

For the very latest news on progress with this problem, periodically check the UpReport web page at http://www.accc.uic.edu/upreport/. We will post a notice there either when it is back up, or when we can make a better estimate of when that will be.

We are working closely and intensively with support teams from IBM/Tivoli and Quantum to resolve this. ADSM is the primary backup for most of servers that we are responsible for, as well as for each of our desktop PCs, so we want this fixed as urgently as any of the rest of you. Thank you for your patience.

Nov 10 2005 - The ADSM network backup server really is down, despite saying "Up" here on UpReport. This misleading report is because the server has been brought up to help diagnose the problem, but all user access has been disabled, because it does not have access to any tape drives or tapes. We appreciate your patience while we pursue this as an extremely urgent problem with Tivoli and Quantum support.

Nov 09 2005 - The ADSM network backup server really is down, despite saying "Up" here on UpReport. This misleading report is because the server has been brought up to help diagnose the problem, but all user access has been disabled, because it does not have access to any tape drives or tapes. We appreciate your patience while we pursue this as an extremely urgent problem with Tivoli Support.

Nov 09 2005 - The ADSM network backup service is down. We are working to fix it as soon as possible, but we do not have any time estimate.

Nov 02 2005 - The ACCC will take news.uic.edu down PERMANENTLY at 5pm this Friday, November 4th.

This Removal of Service was announced on July 12th and scheduled for September 1st.