Tuesday, September 10, 2013

Email servers (mostly) back to normal

This morning we attempted to move the AFSC email servers to our remote hosting location. We ran into some problems we could not solve in a timely manner, so we opted to bring the servers back to Friends Center. We will try to determine what went wrong so we won’t run into the same problems when we try to move them again.

As of this writing (11:45am, US Eastern time), here is the status:
  • The email servers are back up and running. 
  • Internal mail is working normally.
  • You should be able to send email normally to contacts outside of AFSC.
  • Outside email coming into AFSC is spotty, but getting better. (We made changes to our public address, so that outside senders would know that our email servers had moved. When we opted to bring the email servers back into Friends Center, we had to change the public address back. The first change took a while to take effect. The second change is still in the process of taking effect. Over the next few hours, things should change back to normal.)
  • Email on your smartphone or tablet may or may not work, for the same reasons as above. It will eventually come back to normal.
  • Theoretically, no email from outside contacts should have been lost during this outage. However, some could have been bounced back to the original sender. If someone sent you an email that was not delivered, they should have received a non-delivery notice from their own email server. If they try sending their message again, it should come through.

Thanks for your patience,

Rob

Email servers back in Friends Center

We ran into some insurmountable problems moving the email servers. So we have brought them back to Friends Center. Your Outlook should be working now. If it is not, try closing Outlook and re-starting it. If that doesn't work, please call the Helpdesk at 215-241-7850 or 800-500-AFSC.

Mail NOT working after all

Mail is not moving normally, even internally. We are working to solve the problem.

We will continue to keep posting.

Email server move mostly complete

If you are on the AFSC network (behind an AFSC firewall or using VPN) mail should be mostly working now. You may have difficulty sending and receiving mail to/from the outside world until all the changes have percolated around the world. This means you may need to use VPN to get your mail working if you are not on the AFSC network (at home or in an office without an AFSC firewall). It also means you probably can't get your AFSC mail on your smartphone or tablet until things settle. We will keep you posted.

Wednesday, September 4, 2013

Email Servers Moving 9/10/2013

AFSC's email servers will be moving to an off-site hosting provider. The move will take place on Tuesday, September 10, starting at 6:30am US Eastern time. AFSC email will be off-line for two hours or less.