The University data centre is the location of a number of our internally hosted IT Services. During the upcoming winter closure period, we will undertake essential electrical testing work to ensure the safety of our staff, systems and data. This work requires a complete shutdown of some of our systems for a short period, and access to our buildings will also be restricted to essential use only during this time.
The dates for the data centre closure were selected by UEB (University Executive board) to minimise disruption to the University and reflect the timings of the last round of electrical testing in December 2021. The majority of our systems will be fully operational until 07:00 Wednesday 27 December, with a few select systems and High-Performance Computers offline from 16:00 Thursday 21 December.
All our cloud-based systems, such as Teams, email, OneDrive and SharePoint, will remain operational throughout the period, as will Wi-Fi. You can see a full list of the systems that will be available and Staff FAQs on the dedicated SharePoint. If a system is not on this list, please assume it will not be available from 07:00 Wednesday 27 December to 18:00 Monday 1 January. Please be assured that our systems have multiple failsafes built in, and the risk of loss of data or systems failing due to this planned maintenance is extremely low.
We’re working closely with key stakeholders across the University to ensure they are kept informed. The project team will also share a Manager Briefing Sheet shortly with more details, and Student FAQs will be shared in late November.