[Video] VCUCC Responds To Emergency
The staff at the VCU Computer Center like to keep a low profile. If we are not talking about the center then in all likelihood the staff is going about their business maintaining the systems that keep the VCU campus buzzing on a daily basis. We generally don’t think about the computer center as long as our websites are serving pages, students are using eServices to sign up for classes, checking homework assignments in Blackboard, and email is flowing through our inboxes. As fate would have it, events can conspire to remind us just how much we depend on the VCU Computer Center.
In October, the VCU Computer Center experienced two events that had many on campus buzzing about the computer center. The first occurred on October 7, 2010 when an underground utilities vault caught fire and disrupted electrical service to much of downtown Richmond. The systems that cool the computer center lost power and many systems had to be shut down until power was restored and the center could be cooled to the point that systems were able to be brought back online. The event took place late in the afternoon but by 8 a.m. the next morning virtually all services were restored for business as usual activities. On October 13, 2010 the VCUCC experienced another incidence where services were disrupted when a key piece of network equipment experienced a hardware failure that brought network traffic to a virtual standstill. This second event did not effect computer center operations but as the networking equipment was located at VCUCC, they played a role in providing support to Network Services who quickly developed a solution for their hardware problem.
We visited the computer center recently to talk to the staff about the downtown fire that caused the problems in early October and learned what steps they took to get the campus back up and running. The video of our discussion is below or you can visit the VCU Technology Services YouTube channel to view this and other stories we have to tell about technology at VCU.