The Novell computer network is a vital part of the daily lives of the Rose-Hulman community. If any part of the network fails, it can lead to delays in homework, professor preparation, and administration.

Unfortunately, campus computers were unable to connect with Earth on Wednesday. As a result, part of the Novell network went down before lunch. According to Bernie Timberman, manager of Novell Networking Services in Waters Computing Center (WCC), a network card failed in the Earth server, which caused various side effects. The Earth server controls all of the network printers on campus as well as some other applications.

“[Wednesday] was a bad day,” commented Timberman. “Everything that could go wrong did.”

Apparently, there were no major delays as a result of the inoperable server. The notable consequences consisted mainly of an inability to use the network printers. Computers also took longer to log on to Novell because of Earth not being available.

Once the unlikely bad netcard was found to be the cause of the failure, it was replaced and the server was brought back online in a timely manner.

Ironically, a new server was recently ordered to replace the present Earth machine. To eliminate name/location conflicts, the name of the new machine will remain as “Earth.” The new Earth will have a dual Pentium II 333 Mhz processor with 256 megabytes of memory. The server upgrade will take place while most users are away, which may be as early as fall break in October.

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