E-mail crash kills messages
By: Lindsey Pilcher
Issue date: 11/11/04 Section: News
Thousands of e-mails were lost around midnight Nov. 8 when the faculty and staff e-mail server crashed without warning. Some professors and administrators lost all of their stored e-mail from professional colleagues and students, and are unable to retrieve the lost information.
Larry Haffner, the vice president of information technology, estimates that half of all e-mails were lost during the crash. Technical services does not back up the server due to privacy concerns.
Gary Gottlieb, assistant professor of audio production, checked his e-mail at 6:30 a.m. to find that he only had three messages in his inbox as opposed to the 100 the day before. He also lost all of his folders, which had contact information for his professional colleagues around the world as well as student papers that he had yet to grade. Gottlieb estimates that he lost 2,000 e-mails overall.
"My first reaction was that it was no problem," Gottlieb said. "They'll just restore it because of course they back everything up."
He was amazed when he learned that technical services does not back up any information.
"They claim it's due to privacy concerns," he said. "I think it's poor allocation of resources."
Haffner said the decision to forego a back-up system was made eight years ago, before he came to Webster. He said that about half of all universities choose not to back-up their servers, in order to protect faculty from court orders demanding access to e-mails.
Since this crash has had such broad consequences, Haffner predicts that the university will have to re-evaluate its policy about backing up the server.
The cause of the crash is still unknown. James Crivello, director of networking and technical services, said he is working to find the root of the problem.
"It could take us a day or a week or we may never know," Crivello said.
After the e-mail server was brought up at 6 a.m., it began to send e-mails to the wrong people. At that point, technical services decided to bring down the server again and make a back-up of the information. Those e-mails will be properly redistributed throughout the week.
Haffner said that this is the only time in eight years a failure of this magnitude has occurred. Multiple errors had to occur simultaneously for this to happen.
Haffner himself lost all of his e-mail stored in his inbox and half of the e-mails in his folders.
Larry Haffner, the vice president of information technology, estimates that half of all e-mails were lost during the crash. Technical services does not back up the server due to privacy concerns.
Gary Gottlieb, assistant professor of audio production, checked his e-mail at 6:30 a.m. to find that he only had three messages in his inbox as opposed to the 100 the day before. He also lost all of his folders, which had contact information for his professional colleagues around the world as well as student papers that he had yet to grade. Gottlieb estimates that he lost 2,000 e-mails overall.
"My first reaction was that it was no problem," Gottlieb said. "They'll just restore it because of course they back everything up."
He was amazed when he learned that technical services does not back up any information.
"They claim it's due to privacy concerns," he said. "I think it's poor allocation of resources."
Haffner said the decision to forego a back-up system was made eight years ago, before he came to Webster. He said that about half of all universities choose not to back-up their servers, in order to protect faculty from court orders demanding access to e-mails.
Since this crash has had such broad consequences, Haffner predicts that the university will have to re-evaluate its policy about backing up the server.
The cause of the crash is still unknown. James Crivello, director of networking and technical services, said he is working to find the root of the problem.
"It could take us a day or a week or we may never know," Crivello said.
After the e-mail server was brought up at 6 a.m., it began to send e-mails to the wrong people. At that point, technical services decided to bring down the server again and make a back-up of the information. Those e-mails will be properly redistributed throughout the week.
Haffner said that this is the only time in eight years a failure of this magnitude has occurred. Multiple errors had to occur simultaneously for this to happen.
Haffner himself lost all of his e-mail stored in his inbox and half of the e-mails in his folders.
