By the end of last year, the Guyana Lands and Surveys Commission (GL&SC) was attempting to recover data that it lost access to after an “electrical anomaly” resulted in all of its servers becoming either “non-functional” or “mal-functional.”
According to the GL&SC’s 2014 annual report recently laid in Parliament, all six physical servers in the server room were rendered non-functional or mal-functional due to an electrical problem, resulting in major files becoming inaccessible.
Sources within the commission yesterday said that four of five servers were damaged as a result of electrical problems, the area was facing at the time. Stabroek News was told that most of the major data was recovered and there was absolutely no issue in relation to malfunctioning of the servers at the moment, since the problem was fixed a long time ago.
Officials said that there was a robust uninterruptable power supply (UPS) installed and although its ability is not beyond failure, they are confident that the system was strengthened and functioning effectively.
It was also noted that three new servers were deployed which matched the service obtained from the previous four.
According to the report, six machines hosted a total of thirteen separate server roles/functions, all of which ceased when the physical servers became nonfunctional. The router that managed internet access was also damaged.
As a result, the report stated, computer users were unable to access various resources on the network and were unable to use the Lease Management System (LMS) or ACCPAC accounting software.
In addition, data backups were unusable since no server was available on which to restore data.
The report said by the end of 2014, two physical servers hosting a total of eight critical roles/functions, networking, internet/email along with all database (LMS, ACCPAC) access were restored.
Subsequently, procurement of three servers and a router to replace all damaged hardware, along with a centralised 8 kVA UPS for the server room was completed. The three servers were expected to be deployed in the first quarter of this year upon the completion of the installation of the centralised UPS system.
The report added that both the tape drive and the backup tapes were found to be malfunctioning and as a result, alternative means of data recovery of several critical data sets were systematically explored and carried out over the period. At the end of 2014, the remaining datasets were in the process of being outsourced to a local data recovery service, it further said.
