Dear colleagues,
following the shutdown of electricity and cooling systems at the MBI the IT system must be taken down as well. Here are the details. Please read it carefully.
(1) On whit monday, June 9 2014, the energy provider Vattenfall upgrades the electric power supply of the Adlershof science campus from 30 kV to 110 kV. This is a capacity upgrade to offload otherwise overloaded tranmission lines. This switch over entails a total blackout for 15 minutes, from 8 a.m. to 8:15 a.m. as has been announced previously.
(2) The neighbouring institutes MBI, IKZ and FVB-IT (the Forschungsverbund's central IT department) shut down the entire IT infrastructure during this event. Reasons are gives as follows: 1. The uninterruptible power supply located at IKZ is not able to sustain power if the interruption takes longer than announced. 2. The emergency power aggregate, a diesel generator, does not take over due to a defective switch. This switch is subject to investigation on that very date. 3. There is no cooling supply at the MBI. 4. High voltage peaks are likely when the 110kV network is hooked up. These surges bear a high risk of damages to attached devices. To prevent further damages to the IT infrastructure, the systems will be shut down completely. Furthermore, all devices will be disconnected from the grid. This means: NO IT suppy at all (neither net, nor services).
(3) Time frame: Shutdown: Sunday, June 8, 2014 Start: 12:00 a.m. End: 4:00 p.m. (approximately) Power-On: Monday, June 9, 2014 Start: 8:30 a.m. (or whenever power and cooling is restored) End: 2:00 p.m. (approximately)
(4) The IT team will be on-site with the colleagues Dose, Ivanov, Kruel, Ludewig, and Reitze.
(5) Telephone: The MBI's phone system will run without interruption for a least 2 hours. At least internal phone calls will continue to work. External connection should remain up & running for 8 hours, a Versatel spokesman said. Versatel is the company providing voice and data service to the Adlershof campus.
(6) Internet: The internet access of the Forschungsverbund e.V. in its entirety will be taken down on Monday, June 6, at 7 a.m. by the FVB-IT staff. In parallel to the MBI they will re-establish the connections as soon as power has been restored. IMPORTANT TO KNOW: If power is not back until 9:30 a.m. the FVB-IT team will postpone the re-establishement of the internet connection to tuesday morning.
(7) Mail: Messages from the outside will be delayed, but nothing is lost. External senders may get a notice about delayed delivery, but the mail systems are designed in such a way that messages are be queued for up to 5 days and delivered after recovery of the destination.
(8) Users: Users are STRONGLY advised to shut down their PCs, turn them off and DISCONNECT power lines. This is to protect the PC against damages by the surge(s) occuring upon restauration of electriciy. As we know from experience, PC power supplies and mainboards are very susceptible against these events. User owned servers in the data racks must be shut down prior to the IT shutdown, that is: before Sunday 12 a.m. The IT staff will take care to disconnect the power lines. Please get in contact with the IT staff for further details. Please note, that all file, compute and license servers will be down as well. Running simulations should be terminated by then.
(9) Oncall service: For further information you can reach the IT team during shut down and restart via 030 / 6392 1555 (Hotline). In the unlikely case of an interruption of the campus phone system here is the list of mobile phone numbers: Dose 0160 / 9062 0099 Kruel 0170 / 9247486 Ivanov 0175 / 1809259 Ludewig 0160 / 9062 0100 Reitze 0160 / 9062 0097
(10) In case the maintenance at the electrical power grid takes longer than expected, the IT team will remain in a standy position until a stable power situation is achieved by Vattenfall and ENB, at most until 1:00 a.m. In the very unlikely case that the situation remains unchanged until then, the IT will be restarted on tuesday.