U. identifies server problem with MyRutgers

Since the spring semester started, students who use MyRutgers may have experienced problems with logging on, resulting in timed-out browser pages or lagged response time when they finally were able to connect.
“I hate it,” said Jan Tagaan, a Rutgers College junior. “Its extremely slow during peak hours. Checking email during the day is like a game.”
During winter break, the Rutgers Enterprise and System Services Office, responsible for running MyRutgers channel, applied a new patch to the servers that operates the site to improve the channel, but in fact slowed it down, said Interim Office of Information Technology Systems and Services Associate Director Ellen Law.
“We applied, over [winter] break, a patch to the servers that we found caused problems during high volumes [of traffic],” Law said. “There were no problems during January, but when students came back we realized there was a problem.”
There are six servers that run MyRutgers together and when one server drags, it causes problems for all of the other servers, Law said. Once OIT heard there was a problem, they began to work to see what was the cause.
“As soon as we heard there were a lot of issues [with MyRutgers], we put a lot of people on the problem and found there was an issue with the patch,” she said. “The patch was part of an upgrade to the server and took a while to figure out that there was an issue.”
But with many students trying to log on to do work for their classes, the main problem was with their Eden accounts.
“It seemed that every time I tried to log on [to MyRutgers], the page would just time out,” said Rutgers College junior Matthew Howard. “It became really annoying when I needed to get to my email to see what I needed for my classes and I couldn’t.”
Law said the process of maintaining and upgrading MyRutgers is continuous due to the ever-growing student population who use the channel and the constant battle of trying to keep up with technology.
She said the problem with the patch was realized and ultimately fixed, once students returned and were able to give OIT the feedback they needed to remedy the problem.
Law said the problem became a priority due to the importance of the channel to the students who use it.
“We’ve had glitches here and there, but the intention is to make a student’s life much easier,” she said. “Our goal is always to provide the best service to the students and faculty who use our systems. We have a feedback channel looking for ways we can improve.”
Law said the MyRutgers server has grown from one or two small servers to a six-server web farm, which makes it difficult to re-create problems to see how the servers can be fixed. Anytime an upgrade is made, it usually takes about a week to see where problems could lie, she said.
For students, the lagging problem with MyRutgers was difficult to notice over winter break, but once the spring semester started and traffic increased, it was easy to see there were issues with the site.
“I use my Eden account as my primary [e-mail] account,” said Cook College junior Amy Gesser. “Over break, when I would check my email, or look at my classes I didn’t notice any problems, but once the semester started, it was obvious there was something wrong.”
Several students said they have had problems with the site recently.
“It’s frustrating because it doesn’t even tell you that the server is not working, it just keeps me waiting forever,” said Courtney Collins, a Rutgers College junior.
Peter Ho, a Rutgers College junior, echoed this concern.
“I always get the error message where it says that I can’t login, so that’s not too good,” said Metaxia Drakopoulos, a Douglass College junior. She has looked for other options because of the problems on MyRutgers.
“I like that it has everything in one place, the academics, the email and my briefcase. But MyRutgers has been a little slow, but Webmail runs well so I use that,” she said.
Law said the point of MyRutgers was to create a central hub for students to access the information and tools they need instead of having to go to several pages.
“Technology is constantly growing and [we] have to improve our infrastructure,” Law said. “We’re just trying to make a student’s life much easier and we are just trying to integrate the most important functions of their [academic] life lives [on MyRutgers].”
She said all of the positive feedback for the help desk enables OIT to monitor and fix any problems that may ensue with any of the University’s cyber services, including MyRutgers.