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/