IS vows to minimize future GroupWise failures after 'catastrophic' erasure June 24

By Jack Gillum

Information Services vowed this week to prevent future failures to the GroupWise e-mail system, which comes two weeks after after an error erased thousands of users' data.

"On behalf of the entire Information Services division I apologize to you for the e-mail service disruption," said Ron Danielson, the university's chief information officer, in an e-mail to undergraduates July 8.

The failure came after an off-site vendor from company EMC made a "catastrophic error" in updating the GroupWise e-mail system June 24, according to an IT statement. The upgrade was to improve system reliability.

Some students lost data in their accounts to as far back as April 29 in two cases, Danielson said. That loss goes back further than the initial June 10 backup date IT analysts anticipated.

Danielson is asking for students who experienced "significant inconvenience" to e-mail rdanielson@scu.edu or call (408) 554-6813.