Category Archives: Hardware

When is nothing something?

Posted on June 8, 2017 by Adam Thorn

We use devmon to automatically monitor a variety of things on our network, including our uninterruptible power supplies (UPSs) that ensure our core infrastructure is able to withstand short power outages. Our UPSs should perform a self-test routine every two … Continue reading →

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Recent problems with network services

Posted on April 1, 2015 by Catherine E. Pitt

A failure of a UPS (uninterruptible power supply) on Wednesday March 25th caused faults on a number of infrastructure machines. This affected most of the services that provide network access in Chemistry, although in most cases only for a short … Continue reading →

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Chemical waste

Posted on October 15, 2014 by Catherine E. Pitt

Recently the batteries failed abruptly in one of our UPSes. When we came to replace them it was very obvious why. Here’s the battery pack immediately after removing from the UPS. The batteries are meant to be flat on top … Continue reading →

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Overtaken by events

Posted on July 12, 2013 by Catherine E. Pitt

We’re doing a complete refurbishment of the Unilever server room this summer. The original plan was to move all the servers out by the end of July in order for work to start in August. The room holds three compute … Continue reading →

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The end is nearly in sight

Posted on January 9, 2013 by Catherine E. Pitt

Here are some pictures of dexter, the new compute cluster we’ve been in the process of purchasing, installing, and configuring for the last few months. It’s been a long process but we’re now onto final acceptance testing. It belongs to … Continue reading →

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Invisible new servers

Posted on October 16, 2012 by Catherine E. Pitt

We have just installed a new pair of servers to help take the strain of running the network services that the department relies upon. This includes Admitto, the VPN services, and many others that are less visible but make Internet … Continue reading →

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Air flow

Posted on October 5, 2012 by Catherine E. Pitt

One of the department’s compute clusters has recently had an increase in usage. The air conditioning in its room is not keeping up with the load and some hot spots have developed. We are going to rearrange the room to … Continue reading →

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Thermal paste

Posted on October 2, 2012 by Catherine E. Pitt

We spent a lot of Monday tracking down a problem on one of the servers which hosts several important services, including the department’s remote access services. When the server failed at the weekend the services automatically failed over to another … Continue reading →

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