Getting support

I'm pretty much "always on". In fact, in this job I have to be. So you'll find me accessible most of the time regardless of the time or day of the week - simply email Andy Thomas or call Mobex extension 59687. I do have an office in Huxley 6m46 but I'm not always in it - I might be in the Maths server room or over in the ICT data centre. I don't have an 'office hour' but you can try visiting 6m46 to find out if I'm there and if you enjoy really strong freshly-ground espresso, you'll be welcome.

Out of hours support

Research at any institution is not a simple 9 to 5 weekday activity and where computing facilities are concerned, a 24x7x365 service is required in many departments. Maths at Imperial is no exception to this rule and in recognition of this, support is available outside of normal college hours although it is important to remember that this is not official and I will not always be sitting at a desk ready to answer the phone or emails at all hours! So there may be a few hours delay in responding to support requests, especially at weekends, but every effort is made to keep in touch with what is going on.

Also, for obvious reasons, problems that require me to come into college to sort them out may not always be be dealt with immediately if they occur out of hours; fortunately nearly all tasks can now be done remotely and the need to make an out-of-hours site visit is rare. Occasionally where hardware failure is involved, things won't be fixed immediately if spare parts have to be ordered.

Outside of college hours, email will be read at least every 2-3 hours but the phone is likely to be switched off at night between about 11pm and 6am so please leave a message if you call at that time. If something really urgent crops up that you'd like me to deal with quickly, you can email me at sysadmin@orange.net which is a high-priority email address linked to a pager that will reach me at all times (including at night), or call me on 07866 556626.

Remote monitoring is used extensively in Maths to check all is well with servers, compute platforms & infrastructure and to alert me via SMS text of developing problems before they become a major issue.

Major incidents out of hours

Maths research IT facilities depend on "upstream services" - power, cooling and computer networks. These are beyond our control and there is nothing I can do personally to fix these apart from reporting failures to those responsible for these; failures of any of these three services may affect research IT facilities in various ways and may not be put right very quickly. We have sufficient reserve power capability on uninterruptible power supplies in the Maths server room to ensure operation for about 10 minutes in the event of a power failure but if the whole campus suffers a power cut, it is highly likely the college network and some Maths systems hosted in the ICT data centre will not be fully functional and this may affect some ongoing research.

In the event of a major incident, every effort will be made to restore services as quickly as possible - this includes visiting college to sort out any problems that cannot be resolved remotely. The current status of research IT services in Maths is updated regularly and during an incident, much more frequently every few hours at least.

Please note: all research IT services will be shut down completely in the event of an extended power cut, server room flooding or a cooling system failure.

Andy Thomas

Research Computing Officer,
Department of Mathematics

last updated: 22.02.14