UT Information Technology Services is investigating the Webmail server's slowdowns during the past week. Though the log on page says the solution to the problem has been identified, ITS has not been able to pinpoint a definite cause.
"We don't have anything that's consistent that points to a cause, so it's premature to say that we've identified the problem," said Dennis Klenk, director of systems for ITS.
Since Sept. 12, the Webmail server has slowed considerably two to three times a day, taking as long as two minutes for a page to load.
"USC scored four touchdowns Saturday in less time than it took for the inbox to show up after clicking on 'Log in,'" said economics and computer science senior Amiya Gupta.
ITS thinks the problem is related to disk storage.
ITS Associate Vice President Randy Ebeling said that the server has been slowing down when ITS runs the program SnapMirror. The program takes an image of the status of the server at different times, allowing for rapid recovery in the event of a system failure.
Until the problem is solved, ITS has been running SnapMirror only once a day, at 3 a.m., rather than two to three times a day in order to avoid slowdowns at peak usage times. They recommend that students experiencing server problems try to access Webmail after 7 a.m.
Klenk said some slowdowns are occurring when SnapMirror is not running. He said ITS is not sure whether SnapMirror is the cause of the problem or a victim of it.
"All the pieces don't quite fit yet," he said.
Three people at ITS are working on finding the cause of the slowdowns. In addition, Klenk said the vendor is researching the problem, trying to find cases where similar problems have been solved.
The problem may require a simple software patch or the purchase of new processors. "We need to be certain what's causing the problem before we make purchases if, in fact, a purchase is necessary," Klenk said.
Until they identify the cause of the problem, he said, they can not predict when the servers will run at full speed.
Be the first to comment on this article!