OIT to Perform Disaster Recovery Exercise

The Office of Information Technology (OIT) is performing a disaster recovery exercise from Saturday, May 18, at 7:00 a.m. to Sunday, May 19, at 7:00 p.m. The exercise will involve shutting down the Gordon Palmer data center network and restoring services at the Ridgecrest data center. We do not anticipate this exercise affecting email, Office 365 or Blackboard Learn, but all applications housed in the Gordon Palmer data center will be unavailable.

During this exercise, OIT will isolate the Gordon Palmer data center from the UA network, simulating a disaster that has rendered the data center inoperable. The primary goal of this exercise is to validate network connectivity, identity services, internet connectivity, and other prerequisites for the continuity of IT operations. Additionally, OIT will conduct a Banner recovery exercise, validating that we can successfully restore operations to a “business as usual” state once a disaster has been remediated. 

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the IT Service Desk at 205-348-5555 or itsd@ua.edu.