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Example: Contact CIT to determine if they would be capable and willing to provide expert support services via their fee services. Information available at <http://www.it.cornell.edu/about/atsus/iws/>. Explore if CIT (or other firm) could provide support backup to what Ivan knows about the server's set-up, especially important if he's away and a crisis occurs. Doing so before there are problems can increase the chance of getting expert and rapid responses, as compared with what you will get if waiting for a problem to occur. CIT (or other firm) might also be able to expertly and cost-effectively facilitate adding reasonable security, or functional enhancements, over time.
Clarifying CIT and Chemistry IT staff are not responsible
- CIT and Chemistry IT are not responsible for break/ fix of the NMR web scheduler or any of its or related infrastructure.
- CIT and Chemistry IT are not responsible for enhancements to the NMR web scheduler or related infrastructure.
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Contextual, technical, and historical background, FYI
Contextual, technical information, as far as Oliver understands it
- The service runs on an Apache web server running on a Linux server, and depends on files and Perl scripts.
- Q: What are the current versions of the software, and will any of them start to lag?
- The Linux server is hosted within Amazon Web Services (AWS), via Cornell's contract.
- This incurs a monthly charge (amount?).
- The server is managed remotely by Ivan.
N.B. The AWS charges are currently going through CIT. CIT is processing the charge to their account as a favor to Chemistry so we did not have to create an account ourselves with AWS. (This can be changed, if desired.) CIT currently has no other persistent responsibilities or connections to this server.
Clarifying CIT and Chemistry IT are not responsible
- CIT and Chemistry IT are not responsible for break/ fix of the NMR web scheduler or any of its or related infrastructure.
- CIT and Chemistry IT are not responsible for enhancements to the NMR web scheduler or related infrastructure.
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Historical background, from Chemistry IT's perspective
Chemistry IT has served as trusted consultants to NMR regarding this server, including helping NMR get it migrated to (Amazon Web Services).
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- The server had been in B-71 ST Olin before being moved into 248 Baker Lab.
- Shortly after Oliver's arrival in 2012, Oliver notified Ivan of our group's reluctance to continue hosting the server since we were concerned we would be inadvertently drawn into dealing with a preventable crisis. The risk of the crisis was high since the service was critical to NMR's service delivery and the server's hardware was so very old, as was the software it depended on.
- When the server was finally migrated off the hardware, that hardware was about 13 years old.
- Also, as a public-facing web server, we judged that it was unacceptably neglected in terms of best practices as well as practices defined by University policy and expectations. For example, it was not being patched or updated regularly or timely, if at all, against security vulnerabilities.
- It had been running an OS version from about October 2005 (RHEL 4.2) (Is this correct OS and date?)).
- Early in Oliver's tenure, Ivan hoped to re-write the scheduler. Those plans fell through over the following 4 years.
- The continued neglect of the server, and its increased potential for a crisis, kept on growing as the years passed.