ICTS Can Fix Things

Yes, there are those rare few who know what they're doing at ICTS. And Adrian Frith is one of those people who knows those particular people and what they're good at.

With Adrian's help, last week the issues with the LCC were solved. The solution ended up being: "Oh, let's just disable all the smart stuff in the smart switch!" Problem I find in that is, what was the point of a new switch then? Apart from the nice upgrade to a Gbit network, which doesn't really improve the situation for ICTS and them wanting to remotely block ports. It's fixed though and nothing has gone backwards (thankfully) so I'm happy.

Then, another issue we had with them was with the Olympiad server. This is the server we use for the SACO. Now, the team are supposed to be training for the upcoming IOI and half of their training is done off this server. The 3rd round of the SACO is also approaching and again, they use this server to train on. The issue was that it could only be accessed on campus via the IP address. The DNS wouldn't resolve and the firewall was blocking access from off campus.

This problem started about 3-4 weeks ago. We've been in contact with ICTS for at least two weeks. They kept on closing the call, telling us the problem was resolved. Three of us (myself, Bruce and Carl) all tried desperately to get them to sort this out as it was really slowing other things down. On Friday I tell Adrian about the problem and this morning it is solved! Wow, how it helps knowing the right people at ICTS.

So that's two of three issues solved for now. The last one which is only getting worse is affecting everyone. Carl has blogged about this problem, so I won't say much more other than it appears to be related to the issues they're having with multi-casting. They've pulled down the network about five times now to get it working and they're doing it again this evening.

My word, how disruptive a small group of people can be!