EMU Computer Labs will be closed on Sunday, August 24 for maintenance.
Labs effected: Campus Center 223, LTC (library basement), Science Center 11, Biology Lab, Seminary Lab, and CTP Lab.
ST and STAPPS Novell Server NIC and memory upgrade
NIC upgrade work continues on the Student Novell Server from earlier this morning.
Added the gig card and driver to the ST server. The STAPPS server did NOT have the card added due to the hardware being too old to support the newer card. Also added the new memory to the ST server – making it 2 gig.
Faculty/Staff/Student Novell Server NIC Upgrades
All Novell servers will be down while new gigabit NIC cards are installed.
Added the gig card driver to the FSAPPS server. Removed the old 10/100 card. Everything went fine. The FS server did not have the driver loaded. The Card was added and wouldn’t load. Tried a different card in a different slot and it still wouldn’t load. Added old 10/100 card back into the machine and went back to using it. Will research why the drivers to the gig card will not load.
Due to the time needed for the FS server, the Student servers were not changed and were brought back on line around 8:00AM.
Short Network Outage – SouthEast Buildings Only
There will be a short network outage on Wednesday morning, 8/20, to bring the EMU network connectivity to the Brunk house which is being utilized by CTP. The outage should occur before 7:30AM and will last from 5-15 minutes.
This network outage will affect only the following locations:
* Weaver house
* CTP
* Martin house
The LX connection to MH is now to BH. From BH is an SX connection to MH, the continues from MH to CTP to Weaver.
The Fiber connection box in MH is really bad – needs to be modified so we don’t loose connection to that section of campus.
Calendar Server Off-Line Following Upgrade Attempt
The upgrade performed on the Calendar Server at 4pm, Tue, 8/19, introduced new problems to the server. Info Systems techs are working on the problem. Until it is fixed the Calendar Server will be unavailable.
Outlook Connector users will receive an error message that the calendar.emu.edu is unavailable. Click the SKIP button to continue. This will allow you to work “off-line” for calendar items.
Web browser access to the Calendar will be unavailable during this outage.
We are not certain how long it will take to solve the problem. If, by noon today (8/20), it is determined that an extended outage is likely we will revert to the “old” server.
Bb outage: Aug 18, 7-9 AM
Following our successful upgrade to Bb version 6 on July 21, we will be doing a maintenance revision on Aug 18 to bring us up to full compliance. The outage will be short: from 7 – 9 AM on Monday, Aug 18; it’s likely to be shorter than that. Please let me know IMMEDIATELY if that time causes a serious disruption for you.
Calendar Server Software Upgrade to 9.0.4 – NOT Completed!
Original Plan:
Upgrade Calendar Server software to version 9.0.4. This upgrade will be done during the same time as the network outage on campus, 3pm-6pm. Users of the Calendar Web Client may see a slightly different (hopefully improved) display of the calendar data in their web browser, particularly for those users who have permissions to view other peoples schedules.
NOTE: This the Oracle Calendar Server. It is NOT the server that hosts CEO Scheduler PLUS used by Phys Plant for room scheduling. It is a relatively new system that went into production in June 2003 and provides personal calendar hosting. It is used by EMU employees, particularly those who need to share their daily schedules with administrative assistants or for persons who wish to utilize a PDA and synchronize a PC hosted calendar with a PDA.
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Result:
Update NOT successful. System returned to pre-update state at 19:00, Fri, 7/28. Process will be rescheduled for a future date.
Total Network Outage for Core Router Operating System Upgrade
Info Systems will need to upgrade the operating system for our main network router/switch sometime during the next several weeks. The information regarding this planned outage includes the following:
PROPOSED LENGTH OF TIME: about 3 hours.
SYSTEMS AFFECTED: The ENTIRE EMU computer network. Network connectivity for all desktop computers, servers, printers connected to the EMU network and the Internet will NOT function during the outage. (This is MAJOR network “brain surgery”).
All incoming and outgoing email will be queued during the outage (none should be lost). Anyone on the Internet attempting to connect to any of our web servers (www.emu.edu, http://blackboard.emu.edu, http://mail.emu.edu) will get a “cannot connect to the server” error message. Windows computers connected to the Novell servers will be warned about 10 minutes before the outage that they should save any open documents and logout. We will also send regular email reminders leading up to the outage so everyone is aware of the time that the outage begins.
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Upgrade SUCCESSFUL at 5pm, Fri, 7/25, one hour AHEAD of schedule.
Kudos to Dan Marple Jr of Info Systems and Mike Durkin of STG Networks of Winchester!
Blackboard Version Upgrade
system offline for upgrade to version 6.
2nd Bb outage: July 21, 7am-noon
The ‘off-line’ test run July 9-11 to ascertain the exact amount of time needed for the real migration indicates that only several hours is required to migrate all existing courses and user account from the older v5.5 to the new v6.
The Blackboard server will be taken off-line about 7am. It is expected to be back on-line at least by noon.
The server was turned back on by 10:30 AM on July 21. Everything on the hardware and server side is functioning normally. There may be some glitches within the software user interface and database content, but those issues will surface only with use over time.