Published Date
Director's Report
As the year comes to a close, I want to take a moment to thank each of you for your dedication, resilience, and commitment to the Stanford Synchrotron Radiation Lightsource.
This past year has been marked by continued scientific excellence, collaboration, and service to our user community—achievements made possible by the talent, hard work, and professionalism of our staff. Whether supporting groundbreaking research, ensuring safe and reliable operations, or strengthening our community behind the scenes, your contributions are deeply valued and do not go unnoticed.
I am especially grateful for the way you support one another and uphold the culture of respect, teamwork, and curiosity that defines SSRL. Together, we continue to advance science while fostering an environment where people can do their best work.
I am also thankful for the support shown to SSRL by our users, our partners at DOE-BES, our broader sponsor network, SLAC leadership and our colleagues across the Lab, Stanford University and the DOE Laboratory ecosystem. Delivering timely and impactful scientific results for the nation and the world is truly a collective effort.
I hope the holiday season brings you time to rest, reflect, and enjoy meaningful moments with family and friends. Thank you for all that you do, and I look forward to the exciting opportunities the coming year will bring.
Warmest wishes for a joyful holiday season and a healthy, successful New Year.
Witt sincere appreciation,
Paul McIntyre
Accelerator Operations and Engineering
Operations Report
Last week, SPEAR was up 97.6%. The FY25 run uptime is 99.0% to date. The MTBF to date is 88.5. hours. The injector uptime to date is 99.7%.
Beam Lines and Development
Beam Line Operations Report
User beam delivery ends 0600 Thursday for Winter Break. After a 24 hour AP, helium and LCW will be shut off.
Administration
IT Updates
- IT Service Desk phone support and the B050 Onsite Support Desk (OSD) will be closed on Thursday 12/18, from 2-3pm, and on Friday 12/19 the OSD will close at noon with phone support ending at 2pm.
- During the winter break phone support (650-926-4357) calls will go to voicemail which will be monitored for critical, lab-wide IT issues.
Calendar
SLAC Townhall – January 8, 2026 (Hybrid)
SSRL SAC Meeting – March 2-3, 2025 & September 14-15, 2026
SLAC Safety Fair – October 15, 2026
Computing and Networking
Brief Scheduled Network Outages – SSRL IT Systems, Dec 19–20, 2025
Please be advised of a series of brief scheduled network outages affecting SSRL IT servers and network switches. This will cause brief interruptions for SSRL web applications, SPEAR controls, and beamline data acquisition systems.
Outage Window
- Start: Friday, December 19, 2025, at 12:00 PM
- End: Saturday, December 20, 2025, at 5:00 PM
Location
- Building 137, Room 224 (SSRL server room)
- Building 120, Room 216 (SSRL network room)
Objective
The purpose of this outage is to migrate fiber optic uplinks for network switches and server connections from existing fiber optic cables running between Building 137, Room 216, to newly installed fiber optic cables in Building 137, Room 224.
Outage Impact
- A series of brief, intermittent network outages will occur during the migration process.
- These outages will affect core SSRL IT systems located in Building 137, Room 224, which support:
- SSRL web applications
- SPEAR controls
- Beamline data acquisition systems
- Each fiber link will be migrated individually, and single short outages lasting less than 5 minutes are expected during each transfer.
Action Recommended
Please plan accordingly and save data from SPEAR and beamline systems to avoid disruptions during the outage window.
Additional Information
This work is required to support the LSCC construction project. The existing fiber optic cable pathway is obstructing construction activities. A new pathway has been established, and new fiber optic cables have been installed and are currently being terminated.
This outage represents Phase 2 of 3 in the fiber optic cutover effort. Phase 3 is scheduled for January 5–6, 2026. Details for Phase 3 will be communicated in a separate outage notification.
An email will be sent when the transfers are complete.
Please let me know if you have any questions or concerns.
Thank you - Chris Ramirez - SSRL Computer Operations