Sunday Router Shutdown Causes 45 min. Interruption

A router shutdown Sunday night left students unable to access the Harvard Arts and Sciences Computer Services (HASCS) UNIX machines for 45 minutes.

Students' access to e-mail was blocked, and computer science thesis writers were prevented from working on their senior projects, which were due yesterday.

Peter R. Buletza '96 said he was working on a Computer Science 161 project when the router, which is the hub of the Harvard network, shut down.

"It was really surprising that they haven't worked out all the bugs yet," Buletza said. "The network was shut off [for] a whole day two weeks ago. I had to sit there when it [Sunday's shutdown] happened. I couldn't move because I wanted to make sure all my coding was saved."

Rick B. Osterberg '96, Harvard Computer Society Network Group Director, explained why the shutdown had widespread effects.

"Everything has a middle, and when the middle goes, everything goes," he said.

According to Franklin M. Steen, director of HASCS, the shutdown took place between 10:20 and 11:05 p.m.

"That's a peak time for student use," he said. "And a lot of students log in on Sunday night. It couldn't have happened at a worse time."

The nighttime monitor at the Science Center noticed the problem immediately, said Steen. He restarted the system, and it was operating again within 45 minutes.

"This doesn't occur very often," said Steen, who added the network has not shut down in this way all year. "My main concern is that we're there to react if something should happen."

The cause of the shutdown has not been identified, said Steen. When the monitors were examined, they demonstrated that the problem was an anomaly.