CERN Accelerating science

The Zephyr Messaging Service, for real time message passing and service notifications, has been in use at CERN for quite some time to communicate unexpected and temporary failures to users of the Computer Center, such as Mail or AFS server problems. You may have noticed some small changes in these messages popping up on your screen, informing you of operational problems and changes. These messages are now sent and signed by the IT support person responsible for the follow-up of all queries sent to the Helpdesk, the Manager on Duty (MoD), whose tasks were described in the previous CNL (http://ref.cern.ch/CERN/CNL/2002/003/helpdesk/).

It is part of the mandate of the User Assistance team in the User Services group to ensure that the communication between all IT services and the users is effective and that users are aware of possible problems that might prevent them from working correctly. We have been evaluating the possibility to target relevant persons or services only, when disseminating information via Zephyr messages. We summarize in this article the decisions taken as a result of this project (http://cern.ch/dimou/it-us/zephyr.shtml).

Zephyr will continue to be one of the communication channels with the users as there is no easily deployable cross-platform alternative today for real time message passing (displaying a small window on your Desktop). Please note that Zephyr is used to communicate short and urgent information as quickly as possible, in addition to other communication channels to provide more detailed information, and to address the external community who cannot receive Zephyr messages.

The idea of targeting specific communities (e.g. MAIL, NICE and AFS server users) will not be pursued, as it is considered too difficult to identify precisely the users who may be interested in knowing about a specific problem. Instead, a method is included in Zephyr message templates so that users can determine, when possible, if they are affected by the announcement.

An automatically populated web-viewable archive (http://wwwlistbox.cern.ch/earchive/service-zephyr-messages/) for Zephyr messages posted by the IT Manager on Duty was created during the project. For users this is a reference of information broadcasted (and a way to retrieve them if needed). In future, it is intended to provide a "Status Board" for all IT services (complementing the current TVScreen) in the IT Division Web site, and the "Zephyr archives" will be integrated there.

In addition here are the solutions to two questions that are frequently asked by users:

• at http://consult.cern.ch/qa/3106 a technique is given to copy/paste text from a Zephyr message appearing on the desktop,
• at http://consult.cern.ch/qa/3090 there is a recipe for users who fail to receive Zephyr messages on their NICE (Windows) PCs.

In conclusion:

Zephyr is a good and simple tool to get information to users quickly. However, it is like the radio news: it has to be switched on to get it and it may contain data that does not concern you or that you already know.

We are aware that users outside CERN (maybe a large percentage of the community) do not see Zephyr messages. This is why the other information channels (newsgroups, TVScreen, mailing lists) are systematically used in addition.

We would very much welcome your feedback on your experience as Zephyr recipients to User.Relations@cern.ch .