No IT support in Earth Sciences December 21, 2013 to January 5, 2014
Last revision December 17, 2013
The School of Earth Sciences will be observing the university winter closure from December 21, 2013 through January 5, 2014. In general, there will be no information technology services or support available in Earth Sciences during this period.
- No workstation support available via HelpSU.
- No support for file servers, pangea, School network, or computer clusters.
- Save energy and protect computers from hackers - turn them off!
No workstation support available via HelpSU.
CRC workstation support consultants will not be working from December 21 through January 5. The ITS Help Desk (http://helpsu.stanford.edu/ or 725-HELP) will be monitored, but only major problems will be passed to ITS on-call personnel, for example, major network outages. Problems with specific computers will not be addressed until January 6. More information about ITS support during the closure can be found at:
http://itwinterclosure.stanford.edu/
There may be a backlog of HelpSU requests during the first week of January, so please be patient if you need help immediately after the closure.
No support for file servers, pangea, School network, or computer clusters.
The School file server cluster (sesfs.stanford.edu plus specific lab share names such as sacfs.stanford.edu), web server (pangea.stanford.edu) and local area networks will be left running to provide services and remote access, but tape backups may not run every day. Report file server and pangea problems to the system managers. Report network problems to the network managers. Those emails may be monitored occasionally; only the most severe problems may be addressed before January 6.
The A65 and GRID lab computers will be available, but after using them, please shut down computers completely to save energy, turn off the lights, and make sure the door is locked! Report problems to the Mitchell A65 lab management or the G.R.I.D. lab management. Problems will be addressed beginning on January 6.
Save energy and protect computers from hackers - turn them off!
Please, when you leave on December 20 for the winter closure, remember to turn off all lights and electrical devices in your offices and labs to save energy. Shutdown your computer, too! The "sleep" mode saves some energy, but a complete shutdown and power off saves much more.
In addition, if your computer is off, it is protected against hacker attacks. Some people have left their computers on while on vacation, only to find that hackers broke in because there was no one there to monitor the system or click "Yes" to install protective software updates as they became available. Also, turning off your computer will protect it from any possible power fluctuations or spikes.
Workstations that are connected to the School's CrashPlan backup server are backing up new or changed files every two hours. There is no need to leave them running during the break for backup purposes.