Thursday October 4, 2001

Campus computers will run slower over next few days as result

UA computers will run slower than usual over the next few days due to the loss of one of the university's two online providers, UA officials said yesterday.

Sharon Kha, official spokeswoman for the University of Arizona, said everyone on campus will still have online access, but all computers will be sharing one provider instead of the usual two.

She said the university's capacity to transmit and receive information is well below the required amount for normal usage, and transmissions may be slow.

"(People) will probably see when they try to connect to the Internet that it goes a lot slower," Kha said.

Service stopped shortly before midnight Tuesday, and university officials have been unable to contact the provider to find out the cause of the stoppage.

Dan Roman, interim associate director for Center for Computer and Information Technology, 1077 N. Highland Ave., said non-essential uses of the Web should be limited.

UA Procurement and Contracting services - a department in charge of general purchasing for the university - is assisting CCIT in finding a new provider on an "emergency basis," Kha said.

The two providers each supplied the university with 45 megabytes of connectivity, and CCIT officials said they hope to have the service back to normal by tomorrow afternoon, once a new provider is contracted, Roman said.

In the meantime, technicians are monitoring traffic and memory use on the system's computers.

Roman said CCIT has more than 30,000 computers hooked up to its system, but traffic is intensified by access to UA programs on the Web from off-campus.

He said before the second server was contracted last year, the campus ran on 45 megabytes, but since then more teachers are requiring students to use online resources.

He said once connection is restored to a new server, CCIT may consider bumping its power up even more so the system will be better equipped.

Roman said there was some difficulty with the failed provider over the past few weeks, but service was not stopped until Tuesday night.