Core Services Cumulative Monthly Report, January 2006

• New and improved services
• Michigan Digitization Project (MDP) access system.
• Dec: Marsh installed the current version of ImageMagick on clamato for testing with the MDP access system. Snavely coordinated or participated in a number of detailed discussions with the MDP group on the rights database, conventions for naming handles, and mechanisms for storing metadata on MDP processing and for MDP linking between Mirlyn and the prototype access system.
• Jan: Snavely, working with Wilkin, Willett, and Valentine, developed and documented a strategy for rights information management for MDP, and began discussions with DLPS staff on integration with the access system. Feeman worked with DLPS staff to begin developing scripts for creating METS files and handles for all MDP items, which are dependencies of the access system being developed by DLPS staff.
  
• Institutional Repository.
  
• Shibboleth.
• Dec: Snavely began discussions with ITCS to create a lightweight project plan for a Shibboleth pilot project with ProQuest.
• Jan: Snavely discussed the foundations of a project plan with Doster to help ITCS with planning.
  
• Infrastructure
  • Improvements to storage infrastructure, web server redundancy.
  • Dec: Marsh continued work on setting up the network storage server on north campus, but ran into hardware problems with the storage array and began troubleshooting.
  • Jan: Marsh solved the problem with the storage array on the north campus storage server, completed the setup of networked storage, and began installation and configuration of new web servers.
    
  • COSIGN.
  • Jan: Snavely coordinated a discussion with DLPS staff on a single service hostname for DLPS services, and DLPS decided on a name. The new name will be used in the upcoming rollout of new web servers on north campus.
    
  • Redundant MySQL.
  • Dec: Snavely set up TSM backups on soymilk, the MySQL server on north campus and synchronized the installed packages on both cowmilk and soymilk to ensure their configurations are identical.
  • Jan: Snavely set up replication on the new MySQL servers, developed monitoring scripts to detect replication problems, and created and timed a cutover plan. Sheppard, Snavely, and Weise tested the new servers and coordinated a cutover involving only 35 minutes of downtime.
    
  • Production server replacements/upgrades.
  • Dec: Marsh began meeting with storage vendors to seek solutions and pricing for a major storage upgrade for the servers that host Mirlyn and peripheral services.
  • Jan: Marsh continued to meet with vendors to discuss additional details and gather pricing information.
    
  • Replace DLXS statistics.
  • Jan: Feeman began to review the COUNTER and SUSHI guidelines for statistics systems for electronic research resources.
    
  • Develop an authentication and authorization management system.
  • Centralize LIT backup.
  • Formalize system administration infrastructure.
  • Dec: Marsh began to develop generic documentation for OS installation and configuration that will be applicable to both Fedora and Debian OS distributions.
    
  • Revisit logging practives.
  • DHCP/DNS services.
  • Development server replacements/upgrades.
  • Security assessment.
• Work flow, processes, and organizational work
  • Trusted Digital Repository (TDR) compliance and quality management.
  • Documentation and standardization of processes.
  • Improve coordination of data loading.
  • LIT work requests and scheduling.
    
  • LIT on-call service.
  • Cost model.
  • Technology trends awareness.
• Miscellaneous and/or unplanned activity
• Dec: Jessica Feeman was hired as a programmer in Core Services, and will start work in the new year.
• Jan: Marsh upgraded the Oxygen XML editor to the newest version on all servers.
  
• System Performance
• Arbor Lakes server environment
• ethel.umdl (ARC server): No down time
• ezra.umdl (Verde server): No down time
  
• gracie.umdl (Aleph server): No down time
  
• hiram.umdl (Zebra server): No down time
  
• tequila.umdl (Metalib and SFX server): No down time
  
• Central Campus server environment:
  
• belle.umdl (Library Web server): No down time
  
• coffee.umdl (Oracle server): No down time
  
• gin.umdl (WebCheckout server): No down time
• merlot.umdl (public collection): No down time
  
• sambuca.umdl (Deep Blue server): No down time
• quik.umdl (Survivors of the Shoah cache server): No down time
• ting.umdl (library proxy server): No down time
  
• North Campus server environment: All text and image services were unavailable on Thursday, January 19 from 6:55pm to 7:25pm due to database problems and on Tuesday, January 31 from 12:00pm to 12:35pm while new database servers were transitioned into service.
• dlps6.umdl (Oracle server): No down time
  
• dlps7.umdl (Numeric Data server): No down time
  
• dlps8.umdl (non-public collections): No additional down time
  
• dlps9.umdl (Image Services): No additional down time
• dlps10.umdl (public collections): No additional down time
  
• Data Loading and Archival Statistics