Dear All:
Happy New Year!
We are happy to report that all systems are up and running again.
What was accomplished:
1) Firmware on storage NAS servers were updated.
2) Firewall appliance is replaced.
- For those who use the VPN, it will work with both "customized port" 10443
as well as the standard https (port 443)
3) Operating system on Research computing servers was updated.
4) R was upgraded from 4.0.3 to 4.1.2.
5) Python was upgraded from 3.7 to 3.9
6) Stata was updated for both stata16 and stata17, and default stata now is stata17.
Please do report any problems or other inconsistencies you might encounter that could be a
result of our upgrade work today so we can try to fix them.
We thank everyone for the cooperation and apologize for any inconvenience this operation may have caused.
Thanks.
--
NBER IT Team.
support_at_nber.org or it-staff_at_nber.org
Dan Feenberg: 617-863-0343
Mohan Ramanujan: 617-588-0367
Alex Aminoff: 617-588-0353
-----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
On Mon, 27 Dec 2021, Mohan Ramanujan wrote:
> Dear All:
>
> Happy Holidays!
>
> As in previous years, we would like to take the opportunity of lighter than
> expected usage during the AEA's ASSA meetings (Jan 7-9, 2022) to upgrade and
> update Operating Systems, firmware on our computing cluster and upgrade our
> firewall.
>
> This time we are splitting our operations over two days as it involves
> two major items on the agenda.
>
> --------------------- PART I ----------------------------------
> When (Part I): Friday, Jan 7, 2022 6:00pm - 9:00pm EST.
> What (Part I): Upgrade OS of file servers that affects all VPN side
> servers.
> What will be affected(Part I):
> All research computing servers on the VPN side age1...age17,
> agesas1...agesas3, etc,
> will hang and stop responding, but jobs are expected(but not
> certain)
> to resume when the fileserver is upgraded and is back up.
>
> What will not be affected (Part I):
> No other service is expected to be down and it includes
> website,
> back-office, admin/tools, email, staff computing or network
> shares.
> Research computing servers - nber0..nber9 will also function
> normally.
>
>
> --------------------- PART II ----------------------------------
> When (Part II): Saturday, Jan 8, 2022 9:00am - 3:00pm EST.
> What (Part II):
> * Swap in new firewall
> * Upgrade to compute server OS
> * Enabling connection to default https port for VPN
> connection. This will
> minimize configuration changes for VPN client setup.
>
> What will be affected (Part II):
> * Network will be down. Login from both inside and
> remotely will be down.
> * While the email servers, accounting servers, back-office
> servers will remain up, access to them will be down as the
> network will be down. Once the new firewall is installed
> email, back-office, and accounting servers will resume
> working. Any emails sent from email clients may be
> queued on the client and will be sent out once the email
> server is accessible.
> * Back-office and database related functions like, WP
> submissions,
> conference submissions and notifications, admin/tools will
> all be
> down till the firewall is installed.
> * Wifi will be down till the new firewall is installed.
> * All Research computing servers - nber0...nber9, and
> age1...age17,
> agesas1...agesas3, and other servers -
> will be rebooted. This means any running jobs will get
> terminated and they would have to be run again.
> * VPN will be down as long as the firewall is down.
>
> What will not be affected (Part II):
> * Website - www.nber.org will remain up but as mentioned
> WP submissions and conference notifications will be down.
>
> Configuration changes to VPN users will be sent separately. The
> existing configuration is expected to work as is so immediate change
> to your setup is not necessary.
> -----------------------------------------------------------------
>
> We will send another email once we have restored all services.
> Thank you and we appreciate your support accommodating this inconvenience.
>
> NBER IT Team.
> support_at_nber.org or it-staff_at_nber.org
>
> Dan Feenberg: 617-863-0343
> Mohan Ramanujan: 617-588-0367
> Alex Aminoff: 617-588-0353
Received on Sat Jan 08 2022 - 17:25:44 EST
