Postini Service Problems Cause of University Email Delivery Delays
Wednesday, October 15, 2009 8:00 a.m.
Postini, the service provider for the University's Email Spam and Virus Service, announced on October 14 that problems with its service were the cause of delayed delivery of email messages to its U.S. customers, including the University. These problems were intermittent in nature, but led to a backlog in the delivery of email messages for up to several hours. CSSD was in communication with the company throughout the day and Postini made attempts to re-route messages through an alternate data center for delivery. The problem eased during the afternoon hours, but worsened again during the late afternoon. The company announced at approximately 5:00 a.m. today that the issue was resolved.
It is important to note that the problems affected users on both the Enterprise Exchange and IMAP email services primarily with delays in delivery of messages from non-University email systems. In addition, delivery delays occurred with messages sent through the Mailman mailing list service because those messages are also filtered by Postini. Most messages sent from one University user to another and all outgoing mail messages were not affected by the problem. Affected messages were held until they could be delivered.
Postini has provided the following statement:
"We experienced an issue that caused significant delays for all users [of Postini]. Postini Engineering and Operations have resolved the issue, and mail delivery rates have returned to normal. Engineering and Operations continue to monitor the situation. During this incident, incoming messages may have been deferred; no messages were bounced or deleted. We sincerely apologize for the impact to your organization and your users."
CSSD is working with Postini, operated by Google, Inc., to understand the cause of the problem and the actions that Postini will take to prevent this type of problem from occurring in the future. The CSSD Network Operations Center will continue to monitor email delivery times and notify Postini immediately if the problem should occur again. Please contact the Technology Help Desk at 412-624-HELP for additional information or assistance if needed.