The agreement between ICTS and Properties & Services (P&S) about communications concerning power shutdowns is summarised below:
- It is a P&S responsibility to inform users directly affected by a power shutdown. P&S is to do this using their own mechanisms.
- P&S should also send emails to icts-announce-l when scheduling power shutdowns, giving 10 days notice (except in cases of a dire electrical emergency) of such a power shutdown.
- This announcement will trigger any necessary action by IT staff both in the faculties and at ICTS.
- Queries about the timing of the shutdown should be directed to P&S, and not to IT staff.
- Once the message has been sent to icts-announce-l, it is the responsibility of ICTS and Faculty IT staff to arrange to shut down the network equipment (servers, switches etc).
- In cases where the power shutdown has knock-on IT ramifications for other buildings, it is the responsibility of the IT staff involved to inform their colleagues.
Example:
If power to the Menzies building is scheduled to be affected, P&S must inform staff and students situated in that building and get their agreement around timing. P&S must then send an email to its-announce-l, so that ICTS can arrange to switch off the EBEFAC and EBELAB servers and other equipment in the Menzies building.
It would be the responsibility of the EBE IT Liaison staff to shut off specialised research servers that they own and manage.
A power outage in Menzies will affect users in Centlivres, who log in to the EBEFAC server. It would be ICTS's responsibility to inform the Centlivres people that, although they will have power, they won't be able to log in to the EBEFAC server.