[Fair Use: For Education and Research Purpose Only]

E-mail surge at UTB causing computer problems

By J. NOEL ESPINOZA

The Brownsville Herald

The University of Texas at Brownsville is making plans to overhaul its computer system after detecting major glitches in its e-mail server.

Wayne Lewis, director of academic computing at UTB, said e-mail use is up by 58 percent at the university, and that accounted for the computer glitches. Administrative accounts are handled by a different computer system and werent affected, he said.

"Weve had major (computer) system problems during the past two weeks. The number of users shot up dramatically this semester, Lewis said.

The increase in e-mail volume stems from professors increasingly requiring or giving students the opportunity of turning in class assignments via computer, he said. For several days at a time, the disc that holds students e-mail has been inoperative, resulting in students being unable to access their e-mail, he added.

"The demand exceeded the capacity of the server. Mail became very slow and unreliable. It failed, but we didnt lose any data, Lewis said.

Clark Owen, a graduate student and part-time instructor, said hes been unable to access the universitys computer system many times in the past 30 days.

"The computer system has been dysfunctional for several weeks. There is no e-mail, Owen said.

As a result of the flaws, the university is planning to upgrade the e-mail server beginning today, Lewis said. The computer system will be down for 30 minutes this morning and for several hours in the afternoon, as new memory is added and the server is reconfigured to increase efficiency, he noted.

"It should be satisfactory by (tonight) and optimum in a week or two, Lewis said.

The age of the schools e-mail system also contributed to its failure, officials said.

"Its 8 years old and thats old by computer standards, Lewis said.

One UTB professor, who asked not to be identified, said he would like the university to route the facultys e-mail and the students electronic correspondence through separate servers.

"They have everybody lumped together, the faculty member said.

"Were aware of the problems and were working to solve it as fast as we can, Lewis said. http://www.brownsvilleherald.com/topstory/Archive/topstoryjmp/2-18-00/M-18-2.htm

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 18, 2000

Answers

Dee, knowing what I do about educational institutes, I doubt very much that this one is y2k-related. Still, it gives a glimpse of the kinds of overloads that can happen as new uses of technology are attempted. Thanks for the article. :) It brings back unhappy memories.

-- Rachel Gibson (rgibson@hotmail.com), February 18, 2000.

Thanks for your input Rachel. Good point made.

-- Dee (T1Colt556@aol.com), February 18, 2000.