Availability of services during CERN's Annual Closure 2012/2013

General Services

As every year, all the services provided by the GS Department requiring human presence (like the CERN hotel, car sharing service, shuttle service, etc.) will ceased during the annual closure. Services that do not depend on continuous human presence will remain available. 

Support levels are reduced during this period. In general, the target reaction time for problems will be half a day (no guaranteed). In case of failure, the reaction time for restoration of services depends on the arrangements that have been made on a service-by-service basis.

Service outages will be documented on the status board.

For more detailed information please consult the service portal.

Please also note that this year, unlike previous years, the heating will not be cut but idle. This reduced level is equal to weekend operation and should be relatively comfortable.


Computing Services

Most of the services provided by the IT Department - including WLCG production services - will remain available during the CERN annual closure. No interruptions are scheduled but, in case of failure, the restoration of services cannot be guaranteed.

Problems will be dealt with on a best-effort basis only. However, please note:

  • Experts should be reachable to start investigation of the following services within about half a day except around Christmas Eve and Christmas Day (24 and 25 December) and New Year's Eve and New Year's Day (31 December and 1 January): databases, Linux, lxplus, lxbatch, Mail, Printing, Network & Telecoms, Vidyo, Windows & Windows Terminal Services, account activations, password resets, Castor, EOS, AFS, CDS, Indico, Inspire, Twiki, SVN, CVS, issue tracking, Grid (SAM, Nagios, messaging), CERN Grid Services, and the room-booking system. Incidents will be documented at http://cern.ch/itssb.
     
  • All network and telecom services will run as usual. The first-line support will operate normally, but no change requiring human intervention will be possible.
     
  • The back-up service will remain operational, but back-ups cannot be guaranteed and file restorations may not be possible.
     
  • For the Castor service, damaged tapes will not be processed.

 

Please note that the operator service to which urgent problems may be addressed will be maintained throughout and can be reached at 75011 or by e-mail: computer.operations@cern.ch.

Potential computer security incidents should be reported to Computer.Security@cern.ch or 70500 as usual.

Please note that the Service Desk will be closed but can be reached at 77777. Calls will be redirected to the appropriate support groups.


Please remember to shut down and power off any equipment in your office that is not required during the annual closure.