Written by Emily Choong | Photo by Vince Cheong

On the 5^th of May 2014, the Welfare Officers and myself as the Editorial Board representative attended an independent meeting with two staff members from the Information Technology Services (ITS) to investigate several prevailing ITS-related issues in Monash University Malaysia.

It was made known that the 2 core switches, referred to as the “brain”, collapsed last week due to plugging in of a particular device which caused a certain configuration – flooding the entire server. The core network was overloaded by more than 90%, forcing the system to go offline. As a result, all mediums (i.e., printers, WiFi, any devices attempting to connect to the WiFi, LAN cables, including all devices on campus itself) connecting to the core network last week were not able to function through the servers.

On the 1^st of May 2014, the issue was resolved and ITS discovered the person who had caused the collapse. No major action was taken as they believe this was due to the fact that the user was not well- informed on how to plug in the device and did not mean any harm.

By now, the WiFi should not have a limitation to its capacity. However, due to an increment in the student population and having too many gamers in the library, the WiFi connection slowed down. ITS aims to block gamers from using their network by the next quarter to be able to increase the bandwidth. This was meant to be fulfilled earlier but the collapse of the core network resulted in a major delay. A new policy will be proposed and once it is made effective, students will be broadcasted an email.

Speaking of broadcast emails, students were not informed of the crash because ITS did not have access to student emails. Having their network down also did not allow them to put up a notice on the desktops on campus.

The Welfare Officers then brought up the issue of the non- functional WebDrive when not logged in through a desktop on campus. ITS was not aware of this and will look into it. Also, we were informed that Moodle logins may take a slightly longer time due to redirection of traffic.

For further inquiries, students are advised to approach the ITS service desk located at Building 9, Level 3 or to drop them an email at servicedesk.my@monash.edu.