Entries from February 2010 ↓

Computing Services Maintenance for Thursday, February 25th

  • The main campus web database as well as LDAP services will be briefly interrupted due to maintenance activities. Start time is 9:00 PM, and estimated down time is 30 minutes.
  • WebCT may have brief periods of interruption during login due to the LDAP maintenance. Estimated downtime is from 9:00 PM – 9:40 PM.
  • Network Printing services will be interrupted for roughly 30 minutes beginning at 9:00 PM during an upgrade to the PCounter printing accounting software.

Computing Services Maintenance for February 18th, 2010

The following maintenance activities will take place this Thursday evening:

  • UPDATED*** After 9 PM there may be brief outages to Banner services due to a network switch replacement
  • Email Storage Optimization- All email services will be down between 9 PM and midnight as we diagnose and attempt to correct email storage issues.
  • Employee, Lab and TEC Classroom computers will receive critical Microsoft security updates starting after 9 PM. Please leave your employee computers on when you leave work on Thursday

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the ASC Computing Services Helpdesk at x7741

February 2010 Security Tip: A Phishing Challenge

One of the Computing Services staff members recently forwarded this phishing test:  http://www.sonicwall.com/phishing/

It’s not an easy test. Most of the Computing Services staff that took it missed at least one question, including me. We all thought the test provided some good clues on how to identify a phishing or spam email. Take the test and let me know what you think. Was it helpful or confusing? Did you learn something new?

Since we’re in the midst of income tax season, before you take the test, I’ll give you one hint. The IRS never conducts business via email.

Mike.

(The test is copyrighted by SonicWALL, Inc. and presented with its approval)

Computing Services – Banner Maintenance – 13 Feb 2010

We will be implementing the FORMS server upgrade. Forms will be unavailable for about 3 hours Saturday morning beginning at 9:00 AM.

Computing Services Maintenance for Thursday, February 11th

  • Banner- Thursday night, we will be taking Banner offline to install Financial Aid upgrades. Banner will be unavailable from 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM. WebCT will still be available, but self service Banner will be unavailable.
  • Banner- Saturday, February 13th, we will be implementing the FORMS server upgrade. Forms will be unavailable for about 3 hours Saturday morning beginning at 9:00 AM.
  • The campus streaming server will be migrated Thursday night beginning at 9:00 PM, estimated unavailability is 15 minutes.
  • Microsoft Servers (AD, print server, etc) will be patched beginning at 9:00 PM, estimated unavailability is 15 minutes at most to various MS services.
  • MAC OS X server- Disaster recovery process and updates will occur Thursday beginning at 5:00 PM. No user impact is anticipated.
  • A patch will be applied to the Aberdeen storage device, no user impact is anticipated.

Computing Services – Banner Maintenance

On 9 Feb 2010 (Today)

We will be testing the FORMS server upgrade. This is the upgrade that failed last Thursday. We will be taking the FORMS server offline at 7:00 PM tonight, testing the upgrade and then restoring the forms server back to the original configuration. Staff will log in to banner as normal Wednesday morning. This will not interrupt any WebCt or self service banner (including one-stop links).

On 11 Feb 09 (Thursday)

We will be taking banner offline to install Financial Aid upgrades. Banner will be unavailable from 7:00 PM – 10:00 PM. WebCt will still be available, but self service banner will be unavailable.

On 13 Feb 10  (Saturday)

We will be implementing the FORMS server upgrade. Forms will be unavailable for about 3 hours Saturday morning beginning 9:00 AM.

Computing Services Maintenance for Thursday, February 4th, 2010

The following maintenance activities will be taking place Thursday, February 4th, 2010:
  • Banner forms will be down briefly Wednesday night after 6:30 PM to prepare for Thursday’s maintenance. Estimated downtime is one hour.
  • Banner forms will be down for maintenance starting at 6:30 PM throughout the evening, and should be operational Friday morning.
  • Banner Web and Student Services will be down for maintenance starting at 9:00 PM for roughly 30 minutes.
  • Email SMTP Authentication services will be down for roughly one hour for maintenance beginning at 9:00 PM. Email users that use Thunderbird with SMTP authentication for off-campus email sending will be unable to send during this time
  • All TEC Classroom, Lab and Employee computers will receive the latest critical Microsoft Security patches beginning at 9:00 PM. A reboot may be required, so please be sure to save all of your work and leave your computer turned on when you leave work Thursday. If you experience any problems with your computer Friday morning, a reboot will complete the installation and should clear any messages.
  • Employee computers will receive the help.adams.edu calling card program Thursday night. This installation will add an icon to your desktop that allows you to request remote chat and assistance from a Computing Services technician from your computer with a single click. An informational email will be sent tomorrow with more specific details about the calling card program.
Please contact the ASC Computing Services Helpdesk at x7741 with any questions or concerns.
Thanks,
Computing Services