The University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee campus was inconvenienced on Thursday, Oct. 26 when the departmental server went down for the day.

The reason, according to UWM Information & Media Technologies (I&MT) Chief Information Officer Bruce Maas, was a case of old technology failing while UWM moves to newer, more secure servers and databases.

“As equipment ages, you start to experience problems,” Maas said.

UWM is moving from its current server and database system to a new Oracle 10G database that Maas promises will be easier to maintain and protect UWM’s system from spam and other threats.

The cause of the server going down was a disk storage failure. As UWM moves from its existing server to the brand new one, the I&MT Department will be in charge of making sure the transition goes as smoothly as possible.

Maas said that server failures of this magnitude are rare for UWM. Services like Panther Access to Web Services (PAWS) have become unavailable for extended periods of time during upgrades, but an event like this is almost unheard of.

“It hasn’t happened very often,” Maas said. “I’m not sure I can remember the last time a server went down unexpectedly for a whole day.”

Right now both and PantherFile are moving to the new servers. Maas said he hasn’t ruled out the possibility of another departmental server failure in the near future, but doesn’t think that it would cause service to be down for an entire day again.

“We have improved our communication and we have more control of minimizing the impact if it were to happen again,” Maas said.

The move to the new database is expected to be completed within the next 12 months. Maas says that once the move is completed, the servers should be less problematic and more secure.

“Until we move to the newer database, we don’t have the capability to do everything we’d like to.”

Maas added that so far, the programs that have been making the transition to the new servers have been doing so smoothly and that he’s optimistic about what the new servers can offer UWM.

In the event that a server does go down, even if it’s only for a short time, Maas urges students and faculty to contact the Help Desk.

“It’s not acceptable that a vital service would be down for that long.”

The Help Desk can be reached at 229-4040 or by e-mailing help@uwm.edu.

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