StarTrekItalia

September 8, 2006 - 22:00 UTC
We are out of work to send out, and probably will be for the whole weekend. Here's why:

Recently Sun donated a new server (see below for details) which we decided to make our new science database. Our current science database works just fine, but is on an older (slower) system with a used set of fibre channel disks that frequently fail for one reason or another.

We finally got the new server set up to our liking last week and started unloading all the database tables this week from the old system. The increased disk activity caused the aforementioned disks to completely freak out last night. We had to shut down the science database this morning and we are still in the process of recovering the system.

While most of the BOINC backend functions without any dependency on the science database, the splitters and assimilators do not. The assimilators being off are no big deal - this just means a delay in moving results on disk into the database. But when the splitters are off no new work can be created, and our queue of work to send already ran dry this afternoon.

It is highly unlikely we will get the database back up before the end of the day, or anytime this weekend. Even if we do, our highest priority will be to unload the remaining few database tables before the disks crash again.

If you want to keep your computers busy, you can always work on multiple projects.

Sun ha donato loro un nuovo server, che hanno deciso di usare per lo science database. Durante i lavori di "spostamento" dal vecchio al nuovo server c'è stato un crash dei dischi e hanno dovuto fermare tutto. Ora stanno ripristinando, ma ci vorrà del tempo e comunque daranno la priorità ad evitare che ci siano ulteriori crash, e quindi i tempi saranno un po' lunghi, molto difficilmente entro il weekend.

September 11, 2006
Outage update: Though we moved a bulk of the data onto the new science database server over the weekend, there is still plenty to do before we can start using this new server. In the meantime, we may be able to start creating new work to send out later today.

May 1, 2007
Happy May Day. Unfortunately for us it's been "Mayday! Mayday!" At 4:43 (PDT) this morning, our science database machine, thumper, became hasenfeffer. It currently refuses to acknowledge that it has any disk drives. Since the controllers are attached to the motherboard, major repairs will probably be required. No work can be created until this machine gets fixed. We are on the phone with Sun now in hopes of securing repair or a replacement. More info in Technical News.