Beth’s Blog

Remember the last iBorrow build that came out?  Or have you successfully suppressed the memory?  I think it lived for two days, before we had SirsiDynix pull it off the server.  So, we have a new, and–we hope–better plan for this next build:  a test drive in our own environment.  Here’s how it will work.

About 8 p.m. on Friday, June 29, SirsiDynix will load the new build on the server.  Matt and I will test drive it over the weekend, using requests we are creating now, and see if we can break it.  If it survives our testing, it gets to stay on the server, and you will see the new build load on your PC on Monday morning, July 2.  If we find any significant problems, we’ll have SirsiDynix pull it off the server and put the current build back.

We chose to do this on a weekend, because we think there’s not much ILL work going on then.  If you tend to work in the SirsiDynix URSA client on Saturday or Sunday, you have two choices.  (1)  Take the weekend off.  (2)  Put on your crash helmet, grab a note pad, and join us in the testing.  If you want to ‘play’, please let us know by phone or Email, so we’ll know you’re out there.  And we’ll be interested in all the gory details of any errors you encounter.

As a “safety feature”, all patron requests made in the Portals this weekend will go to Mediated Borrowing.  Matt and I will push those on to where they should go on Sunday, whether the new build passes or fails.

If you come across any odd requests in the client between now and the weekend, look at them closely.  They may be one of our test requests.  Some have notes in the notes field.  And some will have borrowers with suspicious names, such as Frodo Baggins or Tom Slick.  Please leave them where you find them.

Questions?  You know who to call.

Suncat searches began producing weird results Monday afternoon, so we got SirsiDynix on the line and had them take a look.  They said, “Corrupted index.  Rebuild it.”  So, we fired up the Horizon Information Portal (HIP) Mass Indexer and put it to work.

It has–as I write this at 4:40 Monday afternoon–re-indexed about 100,000 records.  It has been knocking them off at the rate of 25 per second, and we  have a little under 700,000 records in our database for it to take care of.  You do the math.

If things aren’t hunky dory Tuesday morning, we’ll attack the problem again.

–Al Carlson

Peter Fripp called me back about 1:30 p.m. to tell me the URSA server was back online and that Engineering would look into why it had crashed.  I tested the client and the portals, and they worked as usual.

–Al Carlson

Late Saturday morning (June 16) I found I could not reach the URSA/iBorrow server through the portal or the staff client.  I called the help hotline and left a message.  I hope to have a response–and a resurrected server–soon.

–Al Carlson

Gail Wanner at SirsiDynix says the “old build” of iBorrow was restored as of 4:30 or so Monday afternoon.  Before you open iBorrow today, it would be a good idea to clear your browser’s cache. You know, delete temporary files and cookies. The URSA client uses your browser, even though it hides that fact pretty well behind the Java camouflage. And some of the stuff that it stores in your cache may create problems when you step back one build. This is a possible problem, not a certain one.  So,  if you have already clicked on the SirsiDynix client and gone to Request Manager before reading this, don’t panic. This is the first time we have had to ‘back up’ on URSA/iBorrow builds, so we don’t really know what issues are going to pop up.Please contact us, if you run into problems. Taking a ‘digital photograph’ of any error messages you run into will help a lot, of course.In case Matt or I have not already talked you through that process, here is the short cheat sheet:

This is a slightly expanded version of the Email I put out earlier.  At 4 p.m. on Monday, June 4, the URSA team in Provo will rip the latest build off the URSA/iBorrow server and restore the previous build. 

Picture, if you like, swords clashing and bodies falling, as the defenders of the New Build fight to the last breath to defend it, going down in defeat only reluctantly and with a defiant cry on their lips!  Or picture a guy with horn rim glasses and a pocket protector copying a file from one networked server to another.  Exciting or boring.  Your call.

Either way, we’ll have the Old Build around for a while, as the engineers take the New Build’s code into a dark room and beat on it with rubber truncheons, until it reveals why it went so wrong.  So, Matt and I will be declining overage requests, and you will have to manually send requests on to OCLC, even if you’d rather be unmediated.

We’ll update you by blog and email as we learn more.

–Al Carlson