Christmas is a day of surprises. The day after is not. Which is why Informational and Educational Technology has been alerting us for weeks about a planned service interruption at the Davis Campus Data Center, starting at 7 a.m. Sunday, Dec. 26.

The interruption will put a hold on all e-mail and shut down most of the computer services that are hosted by the center.

SmartSite is among the affected services, and it actually will go offline at 5:45 a.m. Dec. 26, when IET personnel begin switching essential services (like the campus home page and the Domain Name Service) to the UC Davis Health System, which is not affected by the Davis Campus Data Center shutdown.

Facilities Management will shut off the Data Center's power while campus technicians upgrade the center’s electrical system, adding capacity for new research computing clusters and departmental administrative servers. The work will be done with the power off, rather than “live,” for the safety of technicians and to safeguard the center and its equipment.

The main service interruption could last up to 48 hours, until 7 a.m. Tuesday, Dec. 28 — although officials are optimistic that the work will take far less time. Officials picked this time period because students and many faculty and staff members will be on winter break.

UP OR DOWN?

Here are some of the significant services that will be down:

• All campus e-mail — Incoming and outgoing e-mail will be stored during the service interruption, then will make its way normally through the Data Center — which routes most campus e-mail, even if your e-mail server is outside the Data Center.

• DaFIS — UC Davis Financial Information System

• Banner and SISWeb — Student information systems

• MyUCDavis — Web portal

• SmartSite — Course management and collaboration system

• Online grade submission — The services provided through SmartSite and the E-grading site (classes.ucdavis.edu/grading)

• Department servers and research computing clusters that are hosted by the center

• Wireless networks — Moobilenet and Moobilenetx. (Wired connections will be working.)

Here are some of the websites and Web services that will be up and running:

• Davis campus home page — To be hosted temporarily by the UC Davis Health System, which will not be affected by the electrical project at the Davis Campus Data Center. Up until this week, an alert on the home page had been linked to Dateline stories about the service interruption; now the alert banner links to the Campus Network and Server Status page — and this link will stay in place through the service interruption.

• Campus Network and Service Status page — This page will display complete information on the service interruption.

• Central Authentication Service, or CAS — An important service for people wishing to access secure online services on servers that are housed outside the Data Center but which still require users to enter Kerberos ID.

• Domain Name Service — This is the system that turns URLs into IP addresses and gets people where they want to go on the Internet.

Also, UC Davis websites and Web services will still work if they are on servers outside the Data Center. For example:

• The Campaign for UC Davis and the Giving to UC Davis sites, which are hosted by University Relations. People who make gifts will see a confirmation notice on their monitors, but the follow-up confirmation e-mails will be delayed during the Data Center service interruption.

• Environmental and equipment alarms, for the safety of research animals, also will be unaffected — as these alarms run through servers that are housed at a satellite location, not in the Data Center.

MORE INFORMATION

Computing Services Interruption, including FAQ

Twitter updates

ASSISTANCE

IT Express Computing Services Help Desk

Telephone (530) 754-HELP (4357)

• Through Dec. 23 — Regular hours, 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Friday.

• Friday-Saturday, Dec. 24-25 — Closed.

• Sunday-Monday, Dec. 26-27 — 7 a.m.-7 p.m. These are university holidays, but consultants will be available anyway, by telephone, to answer inquiries dealing with the service interruption. (No other IT Express services will be available.)

• Tuesday-Wednesday, Dec. 28-29 — 8 a.m.-5 p.m., offering all services.

• Thursday-Friday, Dec. 30-31 — Closed.

• Monday, Jan. 3 and beyond — Regular hours, 7 a.m.-9 p.m. Monday through Friday, except university holidays.

Earlier coverage

"Service interruption starts at 7 a.m. Dec. 26," Dateline UC Davis (Dec. 17, 2010)

"SmartSite on the list of affected services," Dateline UC Davis (Dec. 10, 2010)

“All campus e-mail, other computer services to go down Dec. 26,” Dateline UC Davis (Dec. 3, 2010)