Date: Sat, 3 Sep 1994 13:28:41 -0500
From: robin@mail.vt.edu (Barbara Robinson)
Subject: note to users
Cc: williams@mail.vt.edu, blythe@mail.vt.edu


Users of Campuswide Mail (Eudora, NUPop, and Eris), the inbound modem
pools, SLIP, and Blacksburg Electronic Village (BEV) software are
experiencing difficulties accessing central services and we'd like to
disseminate information and suggestions about the situation as widely as
possible.  Please excuse us if you get multiple copies of this note and
help us spread the information.  

The difficulties arise from two areas: 

1. the recent dramatic increase in load on the systems, and
2. problems discovered as a result of that load.

Systems Programming and CNS are working to solve both these problems and
most customers are already seeing some improvement in service, though we
have a long way to go.  In the meantime, there are several things you can
do to help yourself and/or us.

If you are using BEV software to access mail from off-campus, you may want
to temporarily switch to serial Eudora or NUPop, which are working better. 
The software is available at 220 Hutcheson in exchange for one or two
diskettes, depending on the package.

The systems were configured with timeouts to drop connections after a
specified number of seconds with no response.  The heavy load is causing
these timeouts to kick in when a longer wait would allow time for the
process to work.  We have increased the timeouts on the terminal servers,
which solves part of the problem.  Scripts used to access the terminal
server, however, also have timeouts which are not so easily modified.  If
you are using a script when manual processes are possible (i.e. Kermit, Tin
Can) you may find your success rate improves if you do the logon manually. 
We continue to work on this and will notify you when additional options are
available.

A significant part of the load is the automatic checking of mail. You
can help us reduce the load by disabling any automatic mail-checking
features or setting them to as long a time interval as possible (say, 60
minutes or longer).

We are seeing fewer loading problems in the early mornings until about
10:00a.m., during the dinner hour and early evening, and after 10:00
pm.


We appreciate your patience as we work through these problems.  If you have
additional questions, please call or send e-mail to 4help (231-4357 
4help@vt.edu).  We are receiving record numbers of calls, however, and even
tripling (or more) the number of consultants on duty has not been
sufficient to keep our response time at the norm.  We will respond to your
questions as soon as possible.  Providing effective and responsive network
services is very important to us and we want to do all we can to help you.

Barbara Robinson
Information Systems