This afternoon (Wednesday, 21 August 1996) the OpenVMS cluster in Oxford,
MiaVX1, experienced two unanticipated service outages when two members of the
cluster -- Ocean, the batch system Alpha, and Stream, the new Directory
(PHonebook) / NetNews / POP3 mail server Alpha -- automatically took themselves
offline.  Sea, the interactive Alpha, was also unavailable.
 
OpenVMS clustering software has various safety features, including provisions
for clustered systems to take themselves offline in an orderly (albeit nearly
instantaneous) fashion if they detect problems.  Ocean and Stream apparently
detected a problem that eluded (and as of this writing, still eludes) MCIS
human systems (read:  Kent Covert, MCIS Technical Services / Technical Support,
and John Harlan, MCIS Client Services / CWIS), while said "human systems" were
attempting to address other, unrelated problems with the electronic Directory
(PHonebook).
 
Services affected by these outages (both of which occurred shortly after 2pm,
and each of which lasted approximately 10 minutes) included all central World
Wide Web (WWW) services ( www.muohio.edu ), the electronic Directory
(PHonebook) ( ph.muohio.edu ), and all OpenVMS based services.
 
MCIS Technical Support is reporting this incident to Digital Equipment
Corporation for investigation, and regrets any and all inconveniences caused by
these unanticipated service outages.
 
--
 
          Miami University
 
          John B Harlan
          Campus Wide Information Systems (CWIS) Coordinator
 
          Miami Computing & Information Services (MCIS) Client Services
          137 Hoyt Hall
          Oxford, Ohio 45056-1618
          (513) 529-5330 voice  (513) 529-5058 fax
          [log in to unmask]
          http://miavx1.muohio.edu/~harlanjb/