Text of email sent to IT Activity Report email list on 5/1/13 by VP Carl Jacobson (UD IT) Subject: Update on Email Migration from Mirapoint to Google Apps at UD and UD Exchange On Friday, April 12, the Mirapoint servers behind the UD Webmail service (mail.udel.edu) suffered a catastrophic failure. The service was unavailable for over 16 hours, and, when we restored the service from a UD Disaster Recovery snapshot, we were unable to recover email sent to accounts on this service for about 2.5 hours on April 12. The April 12 incident was the culmination of a series of problems, none of which engineers from Mirapoint have been able to fix. In fact, new problems have surfaced since April 12. We do not have confidence that the servers will function reliably in the future. IT had been working on a migration plan for UD Webmail (Mirapoint, mail.udel.edu) accounts that would have been implemented this summer. However, since April 12, we have accelerated this migration: Over 9,000 accounts have been moved off the UD Webmail service to one of UD's other central email services: Google Apps at UD or UD's central Exchange service. For the past three years, all undergraduate students and many faculty and staff have been successfully using email in Google Apps at UD. Many UD administrative staff members have used UD's Exchange service successfully for over a decade. Both Google Apps and Exchange offer integrated calendaring and other features. Individuals may move their UD Webmail (Mirapoint, mail.udel.edu) accounts to Google Apps at UD by following the directions at http://www.udel.edu/mpmigrate. We recognize that we are asking people using UD Webmail (Mirapoint, mail.udel.edu) to move their email accounts very quickly. As a result we are offering extra migration help: * Faculty and staff are receiving assistance from their department's or college's IT staff, with additional help from UD IT staff as needed. * IT has added an online chat service specifically for email migration help. (Look to the right of http://www.udel.edu/mpmigrate.) * IT has scheduled special email migration help sessions. Come to room 011 Smith Hall any time between 9:00 a.m. and 4:00 p.m. on the dates listed below. You can use one of our computers but are encouraged to bring your own laptop computer, tablet, or smart phone. - Friday, May 3 - Monday, May 6 - Tuesday, May 7 - Tuesday, May 14 - Thursday, May 16 - Friday, May 17 For more information: * IT Home Page: http://www.it.udel.edu * Migration directions: http://www.udel.edu/mpmigrate * UDaily articles: - http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/may/email-migration-050113.html - http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/apr/email-041913.html - http://www.udel.edu/udaily/2013/apr/webmail041513.html For assistance, contact the IT Support Center: http://www.udel.edu/it/help/request consult@udel.edu (302) 831-6000.