Beginning at around noon on Monday, students across campus attempted to log onto their courses' Trunk sites, only to find the entire system inaccessible. They were met with a link that notified students of technical problems and service wasn't restored until 1:30 a.m. the next day.
Monday's malfunction occurred during a cleanup after a system upgrade. During this cleanup, a University Information Technology (UIT) team member accidentally deleted important files from Trunk's infrastructure.
One of the reasons Monday's crash was so problematic is because of the number of students who were relying on accessing Trunk for assignments and study resources. During the final week of the classes, many professors cram in their unfinished course material and tests in the hopes of completing their syllabi.
For many students, the final week of classes is even more important than reading week; thus, Trunk's failure during this week is just as problematic as one that could have occurred next week.
With only a week having passed since Thanksgiving break and about two weeks until winter recess, surely UIT could have waited to perform maintenance while students weren't frantically working with materials kept solely on Trunk.
Monday's problem was also exacerbated by the degree to which Tufts professors and students rely solely on Trunk. This should serve as a wake-up call to some professors: They should keep backup copies of important materials, mailing lists, and assignments.
With students checking their emails constantly throughout the day, surely professors in many subjects could have a system other than Trunk in place to communicate with their students and send them important files like readings and problem set answers in the event of Trunk downtime. If such systems were in place, perhaps professors would not have had to postpone tests and assignments, and the remaining week of the semester could've proceeded more smoothly in some classes.
The Daily appreciates UIT's apologetic tone in the emails they sent to the Tufts community. UIT team members clearly regret the failure of Trunk, and they understand the effect it had on classes. The Daily would be surprised to learn that UIT was not doing everything in its power to restore Trunk service as quickly as possible, and we appreciate that Trunk was up and running again by Tuesday morning.
But 13 hours during the last week of classes is way too long for Trunk to be down, and we hope steps are taken to ensure such a crippling outage doesn't happen again during such a crucial academic period.
