It was a crime that would have confounded Hercule Poirot. On the night of August 17, thieves broke into the computer room at the University of Manchester in the United Kingdom and disappeared with hardware from a number of university computer systems - including the server used for JSTOR's mirror site in the U.K. Without these components, JSTOR access was disrupted at 47 colleges and universities throughout the U.K. and seven institutions in Ireland.

The theft was similar to other computer facility break-ins throughout Europe, where an underground market for stolen hardware seems to have developed. The police were summoned to the scene as soon as the theft was discovered and as the JSTOR technology team awoke on Friday morning, they were alerted that the mirror site would be down. The team immediately took the necessary steps to re-route U.K. server traffic through the U.S. JSTOR's U.S. servers were quickly reconfigured so that they could take on the load from the mirror site to serve U.K. users, while continuing to serve users in the U.S.

"It took us about three hours to resume U.K. server access to JSTOR," explains Sherry Aschenbrenner, User Services Coordinator. "Because we were able to reroute traffic to the U.S., JSTOR became the first resource affected by the break-in to go back on line."

The reconfiguration was a complex, multi-step process. It consisted of modifying configuration files to alert the U.S. Web servers that they needed to respond to www.jstor.ac.uk, as well as to www.jstor.org, and ensuring that Web pages specific to the U.K. site would continue to appear and would appear only to users of that site. In addition, the JSTOR technology team needed to make sure that the U.S. servers would successfully authorize users logging on to the U.K. JSTOR host. The reconfiguration process also allowed for services on both continents to receive regular updates of Web server pages and code.

Although JSTOR service was restored by Friday, additional reconfiguration was needed over the weekend so that students and faculty could regain off-campus access to JSTOR through an authentication system called ATHENS. By Monday, this final step was completed. "JSTOR's support staff in the U.S. and at Manchester worked extremely hard and succeeded in restoring the service in a very short time, thanks to the foresight of having mirror sites that can take on extra load at a short notice," says Sean Dunne, Head of Bibliographic Services for Manchester Information and Associated Services (MIMAS) at the University of Manchester.

This wasn't the first time that JSTOR traffic had been rerouted from one server to another. Over New Year's Eve, connections to JSTOR's U.S. servers were shut down by their host universities as a Y2K precaution. The Manchester server remained in service, and U.S. users seamlessly gained access to the database through the U.K. mirror site.

"The fact that we had rerouted traffic over New Year's is what made it possible for us to make changes in just three hours," notes Amy Kirchhoff, JSTOR Software Developer. "If we have to do it again, it will be even easier for us."

Because such a large number of components had been stolen from several machines in Manchester, it took some time before Sun Microsystems was able to replace all the missing parts. The U.K. server was fully restored by September 8; after extensive testing, service was switched back to the mirror site on October 4. During the entire time that the U.K. server was not in service, JSTOR users in the U.K. and Ireland had complete access to the database through the U.S. mirror site, without seeing any difference in service.

In addition, users continued to use the U.K. URL and were not aware that traffic was actually being rerouted to machines serving www.jstor.org.

"One of JSTOR's primary objectives is to serve as a trusted archive," says Kevin M. Guthrie, President of JSTOR. "By establishing multiple sites where the database is housed and putting in place infrastructure to utilize these resources flexibly, we can continue to fulfill this mission even in the face of unexpected challenges."

In Manchester, the mystery of the missing computer components remains unsolved.

Last updated on September 8, 2006