Since mid-March 2020, Luxembourg's national economy has been impacted by the COVID-19 pandemic. For the smooth operation of several key national infrastructures, the Restena Foundation is mobilising both its technical and administrative teams, from their homes or on site. But while the infrastructures are solid, some services have been slightly adapted.
Data hygiene for the e-mail service
The telecommunication infrastructures specific to the research and education network are providing services needed by extended teleworking. During this period of COVID-19, the e-mail service used by more than 20,000 professionals in the research and education community across the country is specifically put under strain. An overwhelming increase in e-mail traffic, especially in terms of attachments, has been observed by the Restena’s engineers.
To deal with this influx together with the fact that a lot of disk space is being used by the trash folders of its users, an automated 'data hygiene' has been put in place. From this Thursday, April 2, 2020 onwards, all messages older than 15 days stored in the trash folders of the e-mail boxes are now automatically, and on a daily basis, deleted. Through this measure, the Restena Foundation intends to avoid wasteful consumption of resources and, above all, to ensure continued unrestricted e-mail storage for the whole research and education community in Luxembourg.
Domain name non-expiration policy
The DNS infrastructure necessary for the correct functionality of websites and e-mail addresses, under the national Luxembourg top-level domain (.lu) is handling easily the light increase of demands. Scaled to resist to far heavier loads, it is in no way threatened by the changing use patterns. However, the Restena Foundation has very slightly adapted the services it offers as part of its activities both as the national registry in .lu and registration of .lu, also known as DNS-LU.
On one hand, all accredited registrars to its national registry in .lu activity are encouraged to use e-mail communication whenever possible, and to keep an eye on their account in order to prevent service interruptions due to slightly extended delays. On the other hand, through its registrar service, the Restena Foundation intends to prevent service interruptions by domain name expiration if organisations are unable to handle their payments. The automatic expiration for unpaid domain names has thus been temporarily put on hold for all domain names registered via the online platform my.lu or via paper forms.
Internet traffic under surveillance
Similarly to Restena's own infrastructures, the LU-CIX Internet traffic exchange platform, of which most of the technical operations are managed by the Restena’s engineers, carries without any problem the traffic generated by the COVID-19 situation. This exchange node, through which around 80% of national internet traffic is passing, is also monitored by the Restena’s engineers.