CS Staff Gazette, volume 2, number 1, April 2005

April 2005  --  Volume 2  --  Number 1
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* Project Data Protection
     All project data (/n/fs/projectname) now has an additional level of
     protection against hardware failures.  Data is now stored on mirrored
     arrays consisting of a RAID-5 array and a RAID-6 array.  The minimum
     number of simultaneous drive failures that will result in data loss
     is now five drive failures across two enclosures from two different
     manufacturers.

     While even the simultaneous failure of two drives in a single RAID-5
     array is an extremely rare event, this did occur last December.  With
     this reconfiguration, we are protected against a similar failure mode
     in the future.


* UPS Replacement for Room 218
     As you have experienced, the power quality in this part of New Jersey
     is not the greatest and we are susceptible to power outages from time
     to time.  To protect our equipment and data in room 218 from sudden
     power loss, we use a large uniterruptable power supply (UPS).  Our
     current unit is now over 7 years old and is reaching the end of its
     useful life.  With funding from SEAS, we will be replacing our UPS
     early this summer.  While some of the installation work will require
     the machine room to be shut down during working hours, we will try
     to minimize the impact on the department.


* Beowulf Cluster
     As mentioned in the last issue of the Gazette, Kai Li has made a
     number of his machines available to the department for cluster
     computing.  The cluster went "live" in December with 48 CPUs
     (933 MHz each).  Since December, we have incorporated additional
     machines and the cluster now has 168 CPUs.  For more information,
     see the preliminary documentation by visiting:
     http://www.cs.princeton.edu/beowulf
   

* ProofPoint Spam Filter
     On May 1st, we will roll out a new commercial spam filter from
     ProofPoint, Inc.  This filter actively quarantines spam
     messages; that is, spam messages are not delivered but are instead
     held in a quarantine location.  Each weekday, users receive
     a single message containing both a list of the messages waiting
     in quarantine that the system has determined to be spam as well
     as instructions for "releasing" (delivering to the user) particular
     messages.  Messages that are not actively released by the user
     will automatically be deleted by the system in two weeks.

     We have been beta testing this system since December.  Based on
     our experience, the system has a very low "false positive" rate
     (very few legitimate messages are incorrectly classified as spam).
     However, for those who are wary of spam filtering technology, there
     is a method to place the filter into a passive mode in which
     it will not quarantine any of your messages.

     More details can be found on the CS Guide here:
     https://csguide.cs.princeton.edu/docs/email/proofpoint.php


* Security Updates
     And finally, this is a reminder to keep your machines up-to-date
     with respect to security patches for both the operating system as
     well as applications.  There have been several important updates
     to Linux, Mac OS, and Windows over the past couple of months.