Power Failure Downs Servers

A significant share of the computing services for the Faculty of Arts and Sciences (FAS) shut down at 4 p.m. Friday, after a critical IT system “failed catastrophically.” But services were fully restored Saturday, according to an e-mail announcement from Larry M. Levine, the FAS Associate Dean for Information Technology (IT).

“A short circuit generated extreme heat and smoke in this system, triggering alarms in the data center,” Levine wrote. “After power was shut down work began immediately to shift all services in the room to the second [power supply] system, completely physically bypassing the failed [system].”

The disruption came after a power system from the same vendor, MGE, caused a similar failure in March of 2007, Levine said in an interview last night.

Levine expressed surprise and disappointment about the recurrence, saying that FAS IT—the division responsible for FAS computing services—would be in contact with MGE to discuss “the failure of their equipment twice in a year.”

Levine did not rule out the possibility of switching vendors, but added that it “would be extremely inconvenient for us.”

After the first failure, Levine said, FAS IT upgraded the electrical configuration for equipment connected to the power systems, but he said they hadn’t been able to retool the system itself.

“Such a [power system] is an intact piece of equipment. It’s built by the manufacturer,” Levine said. “It’s not something you do on your own.”

Among the sites and services affected by the recent outage were the my.harvard portal, FAS Web sites, and FAS e-mail accounts.

Sectioning for Expository Writing 20—the mandatory freshman writing class that initially required enrollees to section by midnight Friday—was also impacted.

That deadline was extended to 3 p.m. Saturday due to the incident, but not before causing concern for some freshmen.

“I went to a few other computers and computer labs and tried other computers,” Maxwell A. Newman-Plotnick ’11 said. “But I e-mailed the Expos office, and the next day I sectioned fine.”

FAS IT staffers and technicians from MGE were called in Friday night to remedy the disruption, and 25 staffers worked to fix the problem—some until 5 a.m. Saturday—according to Levine.

—Staff writer Alissa M. D’Gama can be reached at adgama@fas.harvard.edu. —Staff writer Clifford M. Marks can be reached at cmarks@fas.harvard.edu.