Last September 19, a minor fire incident in the Information Technology Services (ITS) office affected servers in the registrar and the accounting office. The situation resulted in long lines, pending requests and inaccessible records for two days.
The incident lays bare the issue of whether the ITS office is secured to provide a reliable system database for the University in spite of possible hazards and negative externalities.
Problem containment
The cause of the fire was the tripping of the office’s UPS (uninterruptible power supply). Two hours after restarting the module and the servers, the UPS caught fire. As a safety precaution, after extinguishing the fire, the servers were shut down and the main power switch had to be turned off. The servers were then connected to the other UPS units after the fire was contained.
It was not until two hours later that the servers started operating again. However, a hard drive was not successfully mounted, leading to additional delay and technical difficulty.
Despite this, the office was able to restore the servers and network connection at around 3PM of September 19. The problem with the unsuccessful reconnection of the hard drive was solved at 8pm the following day.
Managing the situation
The Registrar’s office relies heavily on the computer systems which the ITS office provides. Most of their tasks, such as the printing of EAFs and the processing of documents and registration of document tracking information, for example, cannot be accomplished when there are problems in the database server. Startled with the unexpected occurrence of error in the server, the Office of the University Registrar (OUR) had to find ways to serve the requests without the aid of the system.
“We were doing the regular enrollment processes during that time. It was very busy because it was the first day for application for special class, audit class and there were also a lot of late enrollees,” says Maria Fatima Panganiban, Coordinator for Operations for the Registrar.
During the system failure on one of the busiest weeks of the Registrar – first day of the second week of the term – Panginiban shares that the office did their best to accommodate the transactions. “We opened several windows which are normally not open.”
Panganiban states that during the incident, the office did their best to attend to the concerns of the students.
However, Joselle Mariano (IV, IBS) says otherwise. “I went to the registrar’s just to have my EAF printed [but] before I could have my EAF printed, I had to secure a form from the Registrar’s. It took me more than an hour just to secure a pass because there was only one window catering to a long line,” she shares.
According to her, at that time, there was only one person who manned the post .
Announcements were posted at the windows declaring the situation to be so. “I think we were honest and transparent [since] we were not expecting this,” Panganiban explains, referring to the incident. For students requesting for documents, essential papers were collected with contact details, to inform if the pending request was not approved.
“We have to check the clearance before we can proceed in processing the documents; payments for the requested documents are postponed to the day of claiming of the documents,” she says.
Panganiban adds that this is how the office may be very reliant on the integrity of the server.
It was claimed that the situation was able to normalize the following day while the system in the Accounting office was up and running at around the same time the ITS office was able to reconnect the servers.
Nevertheless, The LaSallian was unable to gain a substantial statement from the Accounting office, saying that such issues were the domain of the Registrar.
Persistent problems
Even after the incident, some students still experienced difficulties with the system.
Pau Delmo, a graduating student, couldn’t access her MLS account because the system showed inconsistencies with her grades and her clearance.
According to her, a missing grade in one of her subjects was the first to appear; in addition, it was stated in her account that she had not yet paid for the graduation fee, which she claims to have already paid during the third term of the last academic year.
Similar problems have been occuring even before September 19; as with any system, zero defects is difficult. Shan Amarnani (I, PHY-PMD) encountered discrepancies in the figures with the tuition fee on his EAF and the amount he paid. After an hour of inquiring with the Accounting office and the Registrar’s office, he was told that the accounting system was down.
Had he not noticed the glitch, he would have paid more than the actual tuition cost.
