Students attempting to use any of the University of Guelph’s online services experienced a rude awakening last Friday. Campus internet, including both Ethernet and wireless services, as well as online services like Course Link and Web Advisor suffered from an extended lack of service between 10:30 a.m. and 4 p.m., on Nov. 6, 2015.
According to the university’s Computing and Communications Services (CCS), the lack of internet was a result of a software bug preventing university network equipment from coming back online.
“Today at around 10:45 a.m., our internet connectivity has become unavailable,” explained Tom Herr, the manager of network infrastructure at the University of Guelph’s CCS.
An investigation was launched almost immediately after reports began streaming in about the outage. At 2:45 p.m., Herr reported that Cisco—the university’s internet vendor—had been contacted.
“CCS is in the process of applying a different software version and reconfiguring equipment in efforts to resolve the issue,” said Herr in the 2:45 p.m. update on Nov. 6. “If successful, Internet access could be restored at 3:45 p.m.”
While CCS attempted to solve the issue, students across the University of Guelph’s entire network were unable to access basic services in order to check grades, submit assignments, make payments, or even drop courses.
As a result of students’ inability to access the university’s network, the course drop date deadline was extended from Nov. 6, 2015 to Nov. 9, 2015. Once students were able to access Web Advisor, they were able to continue dropping courses.
Students took to Facebook and Twitter to express their apprehension about the outage, while simultaneously reassuring one another that the drop date had been extended. “Notification to everyone about course drop date: the drop date has been pushed back to Monday, Nov. 9 at 11:59 p.m.,” posted Joe Szasz to the Overheard at Guelph Facebook group.
CCS released an update at 3:45 p.m., explaining that Cisco had narrowed the issue down the university network’s firewall, but that the root of the problem had yet to be identified.
Unable to send students updates via Course Link, CCS recommended checking their Twitter feed for more information.
“The issue with main campus Internet access has been escalated to our vendor Cisco, and is flagged with ‘highest priority—network down status’ in terms of urgency and impact,” explained Herr in the 3:45 p.m. update. “Cisco engineering is working with our network infrastructure team.”
Though the outage was a cause for concern for some, other students noted that Guelph had become a slightly more sociable place due to the lack of Internet.
“I didn’t take my laptop to campus today and, coincidentally, the Internet is not working! I see a lot more students talking, having coffee, socializing, and even studying together rather than sitting with electronics!” expressed Sara El-Sharawy, in post on the Overheard at Guelph Facebook group.