[SFDXA] ARLB029 FCC Now Says ULS, Other Systems, Will Not Return Until September 10

[Bill]

ZCZC AG29
QST de W1AW
ARRL Bulletin 29  ARLB029
 From ARRL Headquarters
Newington CT September 8, 2015
To all radio amateurs

SB QST ARL ARLB029
ARLB029 FCC Now Says ULS, Other Systems, Will Not Return Until September 10

The FCC has announced that its Universal Licensing System (ULS) and some 
other website applications remain offline for maintenance, but the 
Electronic Comment Filing System (ECFS) is now back in service and the 
Electronic Document Management System (EDOCS) should be available in a 
short time. The remaining computer system upgrades scheduled to have 
been completed by today, September 8, now are notexpected to be done 
until September 10, the FCC said in a Public Notice. As the ULS outage 
continues, it will not be possible to file any Amateur Radio 
applications, including examination session documents, or conduct any 
license or application searches.

"Over Labor Day weekend, a dedicated FCC team worked day and night to 
complete major IT upgrades," the FCC's Chief Information Officer David 
A. Bray, said in a statement. "This work included physically moving more 
than 200 different legacy servers out of FCC's headquarters to a 
commercial service provider." This move - a cost-saving measure, Bray 
explained - ran into trouble when it was determined that additional 
cabling was needed to complete the transition. "Unfortunately, this 
delayed completion of all of the system upgrades - even with the FCC 
team working around the clock throughout the holiday weekend," Bray 
explained.

While the requirement to pay a regulatory fee for Amateur Radio vanity 
call sign applications officially ended on September 3, prospective 
vanity applicants now will have to wait until the ULS is up and running 
again to file an application for an available call sign. The FCC has 
told ARRL that the approximately 18-day vanity call sign waiting period 
will remain in place "for now."

ARRL VEC Manager Maria Somma, AB1FM, said a lot of candidates and 
volunteer examiners have begun asking why new call signs or license
upgrades have not yet been issued.

"We have a huge back log in our filing system that continues to grow!" 
she said. "We already have approximately 75 examination sessions and 
over 500 applications waiting to be released to FCC."

Bray said it took seven moving vans to contain the servers being 
relocated. "With a massive server move of this scale - even with 
detailed planning, independent verification, and backup plans - the 
opportunity always exists for surprises, especially with legacy IT 
systems, nearly 400 program applications, and hundreds of servers," he 
pointed out.

The project will relocate the FCC's "legacy" computer systems to a 
commercial service provider, helping to reduce maintenance costs, 
improve "resiliency," and allow the FCC to shift many of its legacy 
applications to the cloud, as it has done with its Consumer Help Desk.

The FCC said in its Public Notice that it anticipates all systems and 
databases to be back online by 1200 UTC on September 10. By that time, 
it said, the Commission's website "will have returned to normal 
operations, with full content and search capabilities available." FCC 
voicemail and e-mail also should be back by then too.

"We will continue to work diligently and provide updates on these IT 
upgrades," Bray said. "The entire FCC team and I truly appreciate your 
patience and understanding as we work to complete all of the upgrades."
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