The Office of Information Technology (OIT) recognizes the importance of electronic mail for all of the campus community and is well aware of the performance problems with the delivery of e-mail. The OIT staff is working diligently, using every available resource, to correct these problems. There are several contributing factors to our recent problems including:
1. The continual increase in the volume and size of e-mail – mostly SPAM.
2. A hardware problem with one of the e-mail SPAM devices – the Barracuda.
3. Performance problems with the Exchange system.
These problems have combined to interfere with the delivery of e-mail in a timely and reliable fashion. We are working to resolve these problems by additional training, updating hardware, investing in complimentary technologies, and working with experts from Microsoft and other vendors to optimize the Exchange implementation.
OIT cannot control the growth of e-mail and SPAM, but we have taken steps to reduce the impact on the University community and will continue to improve the level of service for SPAM control. Some experts estimate that 91% of e-mail is SPAM. OIT regularly receives over 2 million e-mails per day and blocks over 1.5 million as SPAM because they come from known SPAM sites. We mark many others that are probably SPAM and deliver them. Barracuda devices have been purchased to help manage the large volume of SPAM and provide another layer of protection against e-mail viruses. This service will improve as we utilize the full functionality of the Barracuda.
The problem in early January involving the Barracuda was the result of a failed generator test in the Humanities complex where one of the Barracuda devices resides. The failed generator test caused fluctuations in the power that caused problems within the Barracuda. These problems were not discovered until January 2 and it took almost two weeks to completely recover the Barracuda and have it functioning properly. The result was significant e-mail delays and e-mail being delivered out of order.
Early successes with Exchange and the migrations gave OIT a false sense of confidence and led to an accelerated implementation schedule, however several problems developed early in the summer. There were two significant disk hardware outages. Performance problems started slowly, but increased as more large mailboxes were migrated. The migrations were slowed as OIT worked on performance issues. Some improvements have been made, but many more are necessary and will be implemented.
OIT has worked to address the challenge of keeping e-mail working while correcting the problems behind the performance issues. OIT has a plan to reverse the problems introduced in the past year and improve services. The following is a list of problem causes and planned solutions that are being developed:
Problem - Exchange was started with quotas not being enforced, therefore we have a number of over-quota mailboxes and Exchange has performance problems with large mailboxes.
Solution - Quotas have been implemented on all mailboxes that fall under 250MB. The functionality of Enterprise Vault will be implemented to allow larger mailboxes outside of Exchange. Testing is underway and this service will be available later in spring semester.
Problem - E-mail is used to share files and often carries large attachments that take mailbox space.
Solution - OIT is testing SharePoint as an option for storing attachments and for file sharing and collaboration.
Problem - The number of disk drives for Exchange was underestimated, based on conflicting data.
Solution - OIT ordered additional disk drives and will be implementing that storage in March 2007. At the same time OIT will reformat the storage layout to improve performance.
Problem - The growth rate of Exchange usage was faster than OIT was able to support effectively.
Solution - OIT slowed the new additions to the Exchange system in the early fall and a moratorium has been placed on new migrations until the performance problems can be overcome.
Problem - Public or shared calendars have often performed very poorly.
Solution - The “public folders” where shared calendars reside was located on the same server with the large mailboxes. They have been moved to another server. In addition, OIT is investigating SharePoint as a repository for “public folders”.
Problem - OIT has not communicated well on the status of e-mail in general.
Solution - OIT has developed a new
OIT welcomes your comments and suggestions and will be
glad to respond to specific inquiries.
Please contact the helpdesk at