Dear Colleagues
A brief update.
The most important thing that happened today is that the 'Complex and
Major Loss' Adjuster visited the site. Tony Morland and I described the
situation and gave him a tour of the Centre. It is clear that we are going
to get considerable support from the insurers, the disaster recovery team
and others.
Some good news:
5 of the 6 'partitions' of the main disc storage area have now been
rebuilt and verified. As this has been done on hardware that could fail,
the data has been written to tape and this has been put in the
fireproof/waterproof safe. We already had a backup - now we have two. They
will be placed in different locations. Backups of psychmail are now back
to the regular four hourly schedule.
The vulnerable partition is with ta data recovery team in Surrey. At this
point we cannot be optimistic or pessimistic. We just do not know whether
this data is recoverable from the discs. We will not know until next
Friday at the earliest.
Work has started on creating a temporary IT server room. Today, we managed
to get our hands on the last 30 3Terabyte discs in the UK that are
compatible with our HP hard disc enclosure. Apparently discs are in very
short supply. No 2 terabyte discs were available at all. This is due to a
flood in Thailand. All the manufacturers have factories within a few miles
of each other!
Extra drying machines have been installed. We have been told that drying
will continue for at least one more week.
I hope you can have a reasonably worry free weekend. It is good to see
some green lights here again on the front of machines.
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear Colleagues
You may have just noticed a temporary loss of psych mail. Apologies for that.
It was caused by a temporary routing problem, not a failure of a server or
discs.
At about 18:30 tonight (Thursday), we will have to stop and restart the
mail server. This is so that we can reroute cables to and from a network
switch that has to be physically moved. This should take approximately 45
minutes. It will increase the resilience of the temporary IT service as we
continue to rebuild YNiC. Please accept our apologies for the
inconvenience that will be caused.
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear Users
Many users have contacted the ynic team as they are understandably very
concerned about their data, programs, documents and other critical
material that was stored on the disc arrays at YNiC.
The first thing to say is that all of the raw data (MRI, MEG) is safe.
Everyday we store this material on tape backups. The same is also true of
Users' home and Group/Project home data. The last major complete tape
backup was carried out three days before the calamity.
But we are hoping not to have to resort to recovery from tape. We are
working on forcing the RAID to rebuild itself and this is why we are
closing the psych mail service later today.
In the meantime we have asked for quotations to replace any damaged
equipment.
Some good news (well a tiny bit). Some services are now working eg the
database, RT and other internal services. These will help us in terms of
the recovery plan.
The loss adjustor attended the site this morning and is helping formulate
this plan.
TMS should be available in room 54 on the ground floor of the Biocentre
within 24 hours.
Next update will be tomorrow, Thursday.
Gary
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear Colleagues
I am sorry to announce that psych email will have to be suspended for one
hour today at 5pm. I am apologise for any inconvenience caused.
This is necessary so that we can attempt to salvage another area of disc
storage on the RAID arrays.
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear Colleagues
As promised here is a short update on the current situation in YNiC.
We now know that 12 separate leaks occurred from a pressurised water
system within the plant area in the top floor of the Biocentre sometime on
Sunday.
The water had descended throughout the building mainly down the cavity
wall of the offices and through the risers.
The first we knew of the incident was that one of the disc RAID
controllers emailed the IT manager that it was failing.
He went straight to YNiC and started evacuating the server area. This
prompt action may, I emphasise may, have allowed us to save some
equipment.
Today we have had building surveyors inspecting the building. We have been
informed that we should continue to dehumidify and heat the affected areas
for at least a week. A further inspection will take place next Monday, the
20th. New areas of water ingress are appearing so the full extent of the
damage has yet to be revealed.
The University's insurance manager has attended the site. She is our link
to the insurers and we have been informed that a loss adjustor has been
appointed and will attend YNiC tomorrow, Wednesday the 15th. Disaster
Recovery experts have also been appointed and they will advise on the best
methods for dealing with the damage and also with the consequential loss
of all the YNiC services, not just IT.
We have set in motion a recovery plan. Tony Morland is co-ordinating this
and we would be grateful if people could inform him if they are working to
particular deadlines, contracts or clinically critical timelines. The
recovery plan will, eventually, include contingency planning if recovery
is going to be lengthy.
Within YNiC we are systematically going through all the equipment to try
and establish what is irrevocably lost. We should point out though that we
know that all our warranties are void. Therefore we will be discussing our
options with the advisors tomorrow about how to recreate a working system
that will last the original estimated life.
We are attempting to rebuild the RAID arrays. As these contain a very
large amount of data this will take time, maybe days. At this stage we are
unable to say which, if any, data is lost from the discs. We do know that
some discs within the RAID were lost.
We do have backups on tape in a fireproof safe. But at the moment we do
not have an infrastructure that will allow us to use these backups. The
ideal scenario will be that RAIDs will be largely rebuilt but we cannot
guarantee that. Moreover, we do not have the network switches, servers and
analysis machines that would allow useful access to the discs.
We do appreciate that many, many, projects, PhDs, staff, external
collaborators will be seriously affected by this. We will do all we can to
get a system working as soon as we can.
Please note, the current emails services are vulnerable. We even lost
service yesterday when another drive failed. Please keep local drafts as
often as you can.
You will be pleased to note that the MATLAB licence service is now active.
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear Users
This Thursday the Cognitive Neurosciences MSc students will be giving
project proposal presentations for their empirical research projects.
Please note that the talks will start at the usual time of 4.15 pm but
these talks will take place in Psychology (B020).
Please below for details of project titles and speakers.
Best wishes
Rebecca
(1) MEG to faces: is M170 on the blink? - Pat Johnston
JOHNSON, EILEANOIR BRIDGET,
KOKKINAKIS, ATHANASIOS
(2) Cortical mechanisms involved in attention to colour - Alex Wade (fMRI)
OLIVER, ZOE,
SMITH, AARON,
WONG, PEONY
(3) Imaging using hyperpolarised molecules - Gary Green
ALI, SHELIZA
CAMILLERI, JULIA ANN,
TROY, DAVID MAURICE,
CHEN, JING,
ROBERTS, INDIA MELANIE SUZANNE
(4) A combined fMRI-TMS study of semantic representation and control -
Beth Jefferies (fMRI/TMS)
COSTIGAN, ALISON GRACE
LIU, YANNAN
MURPHY, NICHOLAS
GOGOLEV, PAVEL
(5) Understanding Misunderstanding - S.A. Rueschemeyer (EEG)
STONER, CATHERINE
GARDNER, TOM
--
Dr. Rebecca E. Millman
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
Email: rem(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
Tel: 01904 435 5373
Dear Colleagues and Users
As you may have heard, there has was a major flood within the Biocentre
building on Sunday afternoon. Unfortunately we only found out about this
when computers went off line. By that time water had been leaking into our
area for about two hours. It took a further three hours before the
problems were brought under control.
Water came through the ceilings into YNiC and has caused damage within a
number of rooms. The most seriously affected area was the server room.
Mark Hymers and his colleagues managed to get a large amount of the
equipment out of the room but not before some serious damage had been
done.
We now have to assess the extent of that damage. I am sorry to say that
this will take time. We have already emptied water out of many disc
drives, servers, network switches and power supplies. In other words we
are very badly affected by this flood. The University insurers have been
informed and we are waiting for a loss adjustor to come to the site.
A very basic set of services have been re-established. These allow
psych-mail and ynic-mail to work as we realise that people would have been
greatly affected by the loss of those services. But we have to say that
these services are not guaranteed. The machines that are running may have
been affected by the water damage and may fail. We may also have to
change the servers managing these services at short notice. I apologise
for any inconvenience that may be caused.
We do not have any other services within YNiC. The desktop computers,
data-stores (MEG/MRI), remote access, tape-backups and other core services
are not available. As the MRI and MEG devices depend on these services
they are also not available. The Scratch spaces within the disc space have
been affected and some data/analyses will be lost. Water leaked into the
TMS area and is also not useable. I am unable at this stage to tell you
when these facilities and resources will be available again. As
information becomes available I will let you know of any changes.
The YNiC open plan area is not accessible. We have used some desks for the
temporary server configuration. Cables have had to be run across the floor
and as there are no user accessible services we would be grateful if
everyone can stay away from YNiC until further notice.
This will affect a large number of people. We will try hard to get serive
back to normal. at this stage I cannot tell you when this will be. It will
certainly take at least two weeks as we will have to order some
replacement machines and discs to be able to get anyway close to normal
operation.
Gary
--
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
York
YO10 5DG
tel (+44) (0) 1904 435349
fax (+44) (0) 1904 435356
mobile 07986778954
Dear Users
There will not be a YNiC seminar this week (9th February).
Normal service will resume next week when the MSc CN students will be
giving project proposal presentations for their empirical research projects.
Best wishes
Rebecca
--
************************************************************************
Dr. Rebecca E. Millman
Science Liaison Officer
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Heslington
YO10 5DG
Tel: +44 (0) 1904 567614
Fax: +44 (0) 1904 435356
Dear Users
Today (4.15-5.15 pm) Mark Hymers and Padraig Kitterick will be giving a
talk on "Safe levels of noise exposure in MR scanning at YNiC". Please
see below for the talk abstract.
Everyone is welcome to attend.
Best wishes
Rebecca
Abstract:
In 2011 Mark Hymers, Padraig Kitterick, Rebecca Millman and Quentin
Summerfield were awarded a small grant by the Department of Psychology
to investigate the feasibility of carrying out auditory fMRI research
safely at YNiC. This talk will present the main findings of the work
funded by this grant and should be 1) of interest to anyone who uses MRI
and 2) of particular interest to those who wish to carry out auditory
fMRI experiments.
MR scanners generate very loud levels (>105 dB SPL) of noise. Exposure
to intense noise can potentially damage hearing and the effects of
exposure to very loud sounds are cumulative over the total exposure
time. Researchers who use MR scanners must protect their participants
against hearing damage by ensuring that exposure to noise levels in MR
remain within the UK legal limits.
Important considerations that will impact the design of all MRI
experiments are 1) the duration of the structural scans/fMRI experiments
and 2) the amount of attenuation of unwanted noise provided by hearing
protection available at YNiC. For auditory fMRI experiments, researchers
must also take into account the effects of adding the presentation level
of auditory stimuli to the scanner noise. The talk will provide an
overview of the guidelines written by Hymers et al. in the full report
and present easy-to-use tools for calculating levels of noise exposure
in MRI experiments.
--
************************************************************************
Dr. Rebecca E. Millman
Science Liaison Officer
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Heslington
YO10 5DG
Tel: +44 (0) 1904 567614
Fax: +44 (0) 1904 435356
Apologies for cross-postings
-------------------------------
Dear Colleagues,
On Friday 10th February, YNiC Open Plan and Offices will be closing at
midday. This is to allow for some essential maintenance and debugging
to occur on one of the core IT systems. We will be taking the
opportunity to also move certain data to new storage and perform some
other system upgrades at the same time which would have otherwise
required separate downtime.
The MRI scanner will still be usable during this period and the
Psychology mail server will not be affected.
Systems which will be affected include the YNiC website, booking system,
remote desktop, VPN service and all YNiC desktops. We expect these
systems to be back online around 5pm.
We apologise for any inconvenience caused
Gary
Gary Green
York Neuroimaging Centre
The Biocentre
York Science Park
Innovation Way
Heslington
York
YO10 5NY
http://www.ynic.york.ac.ukhttps://www.ynic.york.ac.uk/about-us/people/ggrg
tel. +44 (0) 1904 435349
PA - Denize Chessa : +44 (0) 1904 435329 or email dcds500(a)ynic.york.ac.uk
fax +44 (0) 1904 435356
mobile +44 (0) 788 191 3004
