Monday, April 14, 2008, 6:00 p.m.

Rice email services restored

Earlier today, one of Rice's three email servers suffered a hardware failure that delayed email delivery.  This failure was repaired relatively quickly, but the high recover load triggered a second failure of an operating system component, and the server went offline.

IT engaged the backup email system for the affected users.  This backup system was put into place last Fall and is kept up to date with copies of all email on the production servers.

The backup system will remain in service until the primary server has been repaired and updated.  At this point, IT estimates that the repairs will be complete by Wednesday, and IT will move it back into production this weekend.

During this period, some anti-spam defenses (DSPAM) will not be available for accounts on the backup server. but the registered black list system (RBL) will continue to provide protection for all campus email users.

Please direct your IT questions to the Help Desk: 713.348.HELP(4357) or helpdesk@rice.edu.