Agenda and Minutes - Apr 18, 2013 1200 UT

Discussion Topics
  • Summary of HD outage - report on contingency and failover (Remijan)
    • See Table below. Temporary fix put in place by replicating the ALMA user Oracle database to MySQL and installed in Socorro. A successful failover test was conducted on Mar 28, 2013. A more permanent fix is being explored by Mike Hatz in Chile. Right now, the failover will work EXCEPT that it will not allow any new users to be added.
  • Ongoing Kayako Update Report - See wiki for past meeting agendas and minutes (Remijan/Sharp)
    • See updated table below for highest priority items that are still being worked on. See the minutes from the previous 2 telecons to review actions and state of completion on previous items.
  • Reporting page - almost ready for deployment (Remijan)
    • Reporting page is now ready for testing at: help.almascience.org/reports. Please send Remijan any comments, edits, problems or quesitons.
  • Revised Staff guide for v4.0 - See attached. Ready for review and comments (Remijan)
    • Main body of text should be ready for review. We know that the Appendices still need work pending testing of the reporting page and other user interfaces.
  • New HD issues - report on SMTP server (Sharp)
    • SMTP server still remains an issue. New server being installed on the dedicated HD machine to mitigate this problem. Work will be done over the next week to solve this issue. (See table below).
    • The redirect for the staff not logged in to the helpdesk has now been replicated. If you do NOT enter your password correctly the first time, you end up on the "splash" page instead of the ticket page. Remijan confirmed this behavior on 4/18. We will file a JIRA ticket with Kayako. (See table below).
  • Plans for update to v4.5 (Sharp)
    • An update to v4.5 will be a major code overhaul even though the look and feel of the HD to the users and staff will remain largely unchanged. This will require major testing before going live. If the current proposal schedule remains, we will NOT update to v4.5 before the proposal deadline. The NRAO helpdesk conversion to v4.5 needs to take place either before May 7th or between Aug 1 - Sept 4, 2013. We need to hear more about the final Cycle 2 proposal call before planning upgrade to v4.5.
  • f2f meeting - June? July? Aug? Needed? (All)
    • On hold until we hear more about the schedule of the Cycle 2 CfP.

Issue Discussion Due Date Complete? Priority
Retransmit notices when SMTP fails SMTP server still remains an issue. New server being installed on the dedicated HD machine to mitigate this problem. Work will be done over the next week (4/18 - 4/25/2013) to solve this issue.   DONE 0
Reporting Key report functionality needs to be reproduced in HighCharts. Priority 4 4/18/2013 - Ready for Testing DONE  
Helpdesk failover for V4

Fixed for the short term - if another storm comes we are ready.

Long term fixes:

1) Oracle authentication - Fixed for existing users: We've created a cron job to export Oracle accounts to MySQL backup table once per hour, and a login script on bigjoe to utilize the backup table. Mike is working on getting access to JAO Oracle.

2) MySQL replication alerts - Done in Nagios (Josh)

and rsyn for attachments- script is prepared, not yet a cron job. (has to be run by hand)

3) DNS redirect? - Josh

3/28/2013 - Test complete though only a temporary fix DONE  
Redirection of staff tickets when not logged in.

Intermittent problem for NAASC, reproducible for EA/EU

*update - cannot reproduce for any ARC. Deprioritizing.

UPDATE 4/18 - Can be reproduced if you do not enter your password correctly the first time. A ticket will be filed with Kayako on this issue.
  ALERT!  
Keep notes in the staff view when posting reply.     ALERT! 40
Default Cycle 1 subject line automation     ALERT! 50
Upgrade NRAO helpdesk to v4.5
Two events dramatically increase our helpdesk load: 

a - Proposal deadlines - one month prior to the deadline
b - Configuration changes - one month before to one month following a configuration change

For 2013 this means we want to avoid:
a - the whole month of July
b - May 7 - July 7 and September 4 - November 4

So acceptable time intervals would be:
- any time prior to May 7
- August 1 - September 4 -
November 4 - end of year

Earlier in the time interval would be better than later, which means either real soon, early August, or during the second week of November. I have cc:d Heidi who may want to chime in. Gustaaf
  ALERT! 3
Upgrade ALMA helpdesk to v4.5 Will need to avoid the ALMA Cycle 2 proposal deadline. When we have more information on the CfP, we can make a more detailed plan on when the upgrade will take place. Either way, it will not happen before Sept 2013.   ALERT! 4
SSO level 2 (with Maurizio Chavan)     ALERT! 2
ALMA account merge/helpdesk compatibility     ALERT! 1
ALMA/NRAO Helpdesk Merge     ALERT!  
ALMA SSO for helpdesk staff     ALERT! 15
Unify NRAO/ALMA helpdesks   2013-09-01 ALERT! 5

-- AnthonyRemijan - 2013-04-19
Topic revision: r3 - 2013-07-04, AnthonyRemijan
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