Synopsis:
Beginning at 7 a.m. on Saturday, October 23, 2004, Princeton standard IMAP e-mail services will be upgraded to more powerful hardware and the latest version of the messaging server software, as OIT continues a major project to upgrade the e-mail infrastructure at Princeton.

During this major service outage, access to imap.princeton.edu, pop.princeton.edu, and webmail.princeton.edu will not be available. All mail destined for delivery to the standard IMAP e-mail service will be queued for later delivery.

Details regarding the scope and goals of this project can be found below.

Solution:
OIT is pleased to announce that significant progress has been made toward a major e-mail infrastructure upgrade. As Phase I over the summer, the LDAP directory servers were upgraded to new high-performance, load-balanced, redundant servers. Hardware switches for load-balancing, proxy software, and a solid architecture design have made LDAP authentication services highly available and reliable.

Phase II involves upgrading the SunONE Messaging Server software and rollout of new, faster hardware. The completion of this e-mail infrastructure project will benefit the University by:

• moving the mission-critical Standard IMAP E-mail Service to more powerful hardware with improved performance
• upgrading server software to vendor's latest, supported version
• introducing a new vendor-supported architecture to enable system "failover" for greater reliability

The upgrade procedure will necessitate an extended e-mail outage. OIT is aware of the mission-critical nature of e-mail, and for this reason the first Saturday of Fall Recess was chosen for the upgrade.

During this major service outage, access to imap.princeton.edu, pop.princeton.edu, and webmail.princeton.edu will not be available. All mail destined for delivery to the standard IMAP e-mail service will be queued for later delivery.

Staff assigned to this project will install and configure the new Messaging Server software and move all user mailboxes to the new servers on Saturday, October 23, 2004 from 7 a.m. to 5 p.m. Should the tasks involved take less time, e-mail sending and receiving will be restored as soon as is humanly possible.