Services & Systems Outages & Alerts

Details
The CCC recommends that all unnecessary office equipment be powered off over the holiday weekend. Please note that if you intend to remotely access your WPI desktop while away, it must remain powered on.

Thank you for your cooperation. Enjoy your Holiday!

Details
*Previously scheduled for the 7th, this upgrade has been rescheduled to the 15th of July.

The main campus web server will be offline for an upgrade. This will affect the main WPI web site, http://www.wpi.edu/, most departmental web sites, and all other sites hosted by the main web server.

All pages will be inaccessible during this upgrade, which will last approximately one hour. We anticipate less than 15 minutes of downtime for static pages. Dynamically-served (CGI) pages will be unavailable for up to an hour.

We will be upgrading from a Sun v20z to a Sun Fire x2200 server. Operating system and Apache web server software versions will be also be updated.

If you have a question or concern, please contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

Thank you for your patience and understanding while we work to improve the services we offer the WPI community.

Details
Starting at 6am on July 1st, WPI IT will be upgrading an email hub that will result in a one hour down time. Email sent during that time may be delayed, and Unix mail users will not be able to access their mailboxes.

This includes:
-Unix Email users (Squirrel Mail, IMAP and POP connections to our
Unix email server)
-Email received from the Internet
-Email sent to the Internet
-Email sent to WPI mailing lists

Exchange email delivery within WPI will not be affected by this outage. Exchange email destined for the Internet will be held for delivery after the upgrade is complete.

If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact the Helpdesk. Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we offer the WPI community.

Details
Software issues occurred this morning resulting in authentication issues to myWPI and network shares.

We have since resolved this issue, and authentication to myWPI and network shares should be functioning properly now. If still having trouble, a reboot of your system may be needed.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to restore services to the WPI community. If you have any questions or concerns please feel free to contact the Helpdesk.

Details
An interruption of Exchange email services occurred this morning.

After troubleshooting, we learned that there is an issue with a data store on our Exchange server. Those looking to access email on our Exchange server were unable to do so as a result. This included Outlook Web Access (http://exchange.wpi.edu/) and email client access such as Microsoft Outlook from on and off campus.

Access to Exchange email has been restored, and this issue is now considered resolved.

Thank you for your understanding. Please contact the WPI Helpdesk should you have a question, or if you are still experiencing an issue.

Details
An interruption of Exchange email services occurred this morning.

After troubleshooting, we learned that there is an issue with a data store on our Exchange server. Those looking to access email on our Exchange server were unable to do so as a result. This includes Outlook Web Access (http://exchange.wpi.edu/) and email client access such as Microsoft Outlook from on and off campus.

We are working to correct this issue as soon as possible.

We thank you for your patience and understanding. Please contact the WPI Helpdesk should you have a question or concern about the interruption.

Details
On Wednesday, June 3rd, the first report of this phishing attempt was reported to the WPI Helpdesk. The message appeared to come from "Information Technology Services". The email was sent to campus in an attempt to solicit passwords from our community, and was not from WPI IT.

Phishing is a method of tricking people into giving up their personal information. In the future, if you receive a similar message that you are unsure of, please contact the Helpdesk prior to following any of the links. You also do not want to download or open any of the attached files which may be attached to these suspicious messages.

If you have received the mentioned message in your inbox, please delete the message and contact the Helpdesk to look into junk mail filtering options. Do not reply with your password!

Should you have any questions or concerns about phishing or the recent attack, please contact the Helpdesk at the contact information provided above.

For more ways to avoid becoming a phishing victim, please see the following link: http://www.apwg.org/consumer_recs.html

For more general information on phishing, please see the following
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Thank you.

Details
An interruption of Exchange email services occurred over night starting at about 10pm and lasted approximately until 8am this morning.

After troubleshooting, we learned that a server had become unresponsive and needed to be rebooted. Those looking to log into email on our Exchange server were unable to do so. This included Outlook Web Access (http://exchange.wpi.edu/) and email client access such as Microsoft Outlook from on and off campus.

Thank you for your understanding. Please contact the WPI Helpdesk should you have a question or concern about the interruption.

Details
The CCC recommends that all unnecessary office equipment be powered off over the holiday weekend. Please note that if you intend to remotely access your WPI desktop while away, it must remain powered on.

In the future, we would like to ask the campus to regularly power down equipment on weekends when possible. Doing so increases our energy efficiency and saves money for the university.

Thank you for your cooperation. Enjoy your Holiday!

Details
A brief interruption of Banner services occurred today starting at about 3pm and lasted approximately one hour.

After troubleshooting, we learned that a login service had become unresponsive and needed to be rebooted. Those looking to log into Banner Web or Banner Production were unable to do so during the service interruption.

We have since restored all services mentioned. Authentication with Windows credentials (ADMIN and Student) is again now possible.

Thank you for your understanding. Please contact the WPI Helpdesk should you have a question or concern about the interruption.

Details
On Monday, May 4th, the first report of this phishing attempt was reported to the WPI Helpdesk. The message appeared to come from the "WPI.EDU Account Support Team". The email was sent to campus in an attempt to solicit passwords from our community, and was not from WPI IT.

Phishing is a method of tricking people into giving up their personal information. In the future, if you receive a similar message that you are unsure of, please contact the Helpdesk prior to following any of the links. You also do not want to download or open any of the attached files which may be attached to these suspicious messages.

If you have received the mentioned message in your inbox, please delete the message and contact the Helpdesk to look into junk mail filtering options. Do not reply with your password!

Should you have any questions or concerns about phishing or the recent attack, please contact the Helpdesk at the contact information provided above.

For more ways to avoid becoming a phishing victim, please see the following link: http://www.apwg.org/consumer_recs.html

For more general information on phishing, please see the following
link: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Thank you.

Details
On April 29th, we will be restricting WPI email to originate from only WPI servers. As a result, other email providers may not allow email to be sent as @wpi.edu addresses.

Users most affected will be those with an IMAP or POP3 connection from off campus to their WPI email. With these connection types, you must use your internet service provider’s SMTP server to send email “as” the WPI address.

Gmail users sending “on behalf of” or “fetching” their email from WPI will not be affected. Also, exchange and webmail users from off campus will not be affected.

If you find that you are unable to send, please set your SMTP server to: submission.wpi.edu with TLS encryption and password authentication.

More information can be found at:
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Services/Email/submission.html

Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk. Thank you.

Details
On March 11, 2009 starting at 10:00 pm (EDT) and lasting until 11:59 pm (EDT), Network Operations will be upgrading the software running on the University's main backbone chassis. The software upgrade is required to address several existing security vulnerabilities.

All network access (wired and wireless) will be unavailable to the WPI community. All IT Services that depend upon network services will be unavailable. This includes all web access, email access, banner access, UNIX access, Windows ADMIN domain access, Internet access, and network file shares.

Although there is a planned two hour service window, only brief interruptions in service are expected during the maintenance window. The upgrade is expected to be completed summarily. As network services are expected to be unreliable during the upgrade, WPI community members are advised to avoid use of network and IT services for the duration of the maintenance window.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we work to secure and improve the services we provide.

Details
On Wednesday, March 11th, 2009 the following services will be interrupted. Expected downtime is about two hours in total. Each service will be down for about 30 minutes during the 2 hour maintenance period.

•Alumni Gateway on alum.wpi.edu
oIncluding email, login access, and web access for alumni.
•WPI SourceForge on sourceforge.wpi.edu
•Urchin Analytics on stats.wpi.edu
•Web development web server on wwwdevel.wpi.edu
•Web proxy on proxy.wpi.edu
•Maple license service on maple.wpi.edu
•Matlab license service on matlab.wpi.edu

Access to all web sites hosted on www.wpi.edu including:

•ADMISSIONS.WPI.EDU
•IMGD.WPI.EDU
•WWW.ALUMNICONNECT.WPI.EDU
•ALUMNICONNECT.WPI.EDU
•MAFLL.WPI.EDU
•WWW.CE.WPI.EDU
•ALUMNI.WPI.EDU
•MGNT.WPI.EDU
•WWW.CORPED.WPI.EDU
•BANNERWEB.WPI.EDU
•MGT.WPI.EDU
•WWW.CPE.WPI.EDU
•BEILSTEIN.WPI.EDU
•ONLINE.WPI.EDU
•WWW.CS.WPI.EDU
•CEE.WPI.EDU
•REGISTRAR.WPI.EDU
•WWW.ECE.WPI.EDU
•CE.WPI.EDU
•RICC.WPI.EDU
•WWW.GODDARD.WPI.EDU
•CFVS.WPI.EDU
•ROBOTICS.WPI.EDU
•WWW.GRAD.WPI.EDU
•CORPED.WPI.EDU
•SCIFINDER.WPI.EDU
•WWW.MATH.WPI.EDU
•CPE.WPI.EDU
•THINKTANK.WPI.EDU
•WWW.ME.WPI.EDU
•DEVEL2.WPI.EDU
•VOCESLATINAS.WPI.EDU
•WWW.MGT.WPI.EDU
•DEVEL.WPI.EDU
•WPI.EDU
•WWW.ONLINE.WPI.EDU
•FIRST.WPI.EDU
•WWW.ADLN.WPI.EDU
•WWW.RES.WPI.NET
•GRAD.WPI.EDU
•WWW.ADMISSIONS.WPI.EDU
•WWW.WPI.EDU

Please let the Helpdesk know if you have any questions or concerns. Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we offer WPI.

Details
The WPI web proxy allows off-campus users to browse the web as if they were on campus. This is useful, for example, to access library resources such as electronic journals, databases, and e-books from home. When on campus, there is no benefit to connecting to the web via the proxy but it does increase the load on WPI's network and servers.

Connections to the proxy from on-campus are often made accidentally. It's easy to forget to change the proxy settings on a notebook computer when moving it between home and campus. This redirect will serve as a reminder to those who forget, and help make better use of WPI's shared computing resources.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

Details
A hardware upgrade is needed on our Banner database. Expected downtime is approximately 10 hours.

The following Banner services will be unavailable during the upgrade:
-Banner Web Information System
-Banner Forms (Production)
-ARD
-ODBC Connections to the Banner Database
-On-line conference payments
-Web Admissions applications
-On-line giving
-Course Schedule lookup
-CCC account creation and maintenance

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions on the down time. Should there be a major conflict, please let us know.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve the systems we support.

Details
Today, Friday February 13th, WPI's SharePoint environment was adversely affected by a critical security patch applied during the scheduled systems downtime earlier in the day. The Windows Team worked throughout the day and into the evening to resolve the issue.

No data has been lost, and all SharePoint & Project Web Access functionality has been restored.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve this unexpected service instability.

Details
On Thursday, February 19th starting at 6:00 A.M we will be taking the CCC virtual machine warehouse server offline. The total downtime should last approximately one hour. We will be performing required maintenance including security updates and a memory upgrade.

Please see the impact section for affected resources and sites. Should you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience while we improve the services offered to the WPI community.

Details
This morning we applied a critical security patch to all systems. A small number of systems were adversely affected by this patch, including SharePoint. SharePoint seems to still be operational, but at this time we ask everyone to refrain from uploading any new data to SharePoint in case a data restore becomes necessary. The Project Web Access site is unavailable as a result of this problem.
We are actively working on fixing the problem and are communicating with Microsoft Support about a solution. However, a SharePoint system restore from the most recent working backup may be necessary.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we try to resolve the issue.

Details
On February 11th, 2009 Comsol will be upgraded. We will also be transitioning the Comsol license server over to failsafe server configuration. A downtime of 15 minutes will occur as a result starting at 7 a.m.

Users who have previously installed Comsol software will not able to check out licenses while the new Comsol software and license server are being updated and moved.

The Comsol class pack users will NOT be affected by this software update.

Please direct any questions or concerns to the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience while we work to improve the services we offer to the WPI community.

Details
The WPI Helpdesk will be closed on Sunday, January 18th and open from 2pm until 10 pm on Monday, January 19th. Service response time may be impacted as a result.

Should you have an urgent request, please email the Helpdesk with a high importance indicator.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the WPI Helpdesk at the contact information listed above.

Details
The following servers require maintenance and will be taken offline for approximately 1 hour beginning at 6:00 am EST on Friday, January 9, 2009. Services provided by affected servers will be unavailable during the scheduled maintenance window. See impact section of this notice for a list of impacted services.

- www.wpi.edu
- webmail.wpi.edu
- smtp.wpi.edu
- ccc2.wpi.edu
- users.wpi.edu
- sourceforge.wpi.edu
- mysql.wpi.edu
- proxy.wpi.edu
- appliance1.wpi.edu
- appliance4.wpi.edu

Please direct any questions or concerns to the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding as we work to ensure the stability and security of the services we provide.

Details
The Gordon Library's Voyager system will be down for about 30 minutes Wednesday, 1/7/2009, starting at 9 A.M. A Voyager service pack containing a number of software bug fixes released since the last Voyager upgrade in October 2008 will be installed. The library catalog will be unavailable while the system is down, as will other services that run on library.wpi.edu, including interlibrary loan and other types of requests such as project reports and Founders storage. Library user account information also will not be accessible. We apologize in advance for any inconvenience while we install this service pack prior to the start of classes next week.

Details
Today, Thursday December 11th at approximately 1:00 PM EST, some WPI community members may have received an errant text message notification on cell phones enrolled in our crisis contact system. This message was delivered unintentionally, and can be safely ignored.

The content of the message was: “NTI GROUP DEMO SMS: You are now confirmed to receive alerts from us. More info text reply HELP or STOP SMSDEMO to opt-out.”

Our system vendor, Connect-ED, is investigating and will work with WPI IT to ensure that errant messages are not delivered in the future.

We apologize for any inconvenience. If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience and understanding while we work to improve the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
During the dates of Monday December 22nd, 2008 through Monday January 5th, 2009 maintenance will be performed on all ADMIN Exchange mailboxes. Work is set to run during the 1 a.m. - 5 a.m. (EST) service window.

This maintenance will allow us continue to achieve high performance on our Exchange databases and reorganize the number of mailboxes per database as defined by Microsoft best practices. Maintenance is performed per mailbox and will take approximately 15 minutes on average to process. All mail will be queued and delivered immediately following maintenance.

Please contact the Helpdesk with any questions or concerns you may have about the maintenance.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
The CCC recommends that all unnecessary office equipment be powered off over the holiday weekend. Please note that if you intend to remotely access your WPI desktop while away, it must remain powered on.

In the future, we would like to ask the campus to regularly power down equipment on weekends when possible. Doing so increase our energy efficiency and save money for the university.

Thank you for your cooperation. Enjoy your Holiday!

Details
Recently members of our community have been experiencing licensing issues (reached maximum numbers allowed) when trying to use Matlab. Matlab is an important software application resource for many students, faculty and staff.

In order to proactively address these recent problems before they become an issue in our classrooms, projects and research, we have increased our main Matlab licenses by 50%. Effective today, there are now 150 concurrent licenses available for use.

Thank you for your patience as we worked to improve the service availability of this important resource.

Details
An unexpected reboot of our virtual server is needed.

The virtual systems affected will be sourceforge.wpi.edu, alum.wpi.edu, wwwdevel and urchin(web statics).

We apologize about any inconvenience this will cause. The reboot should last approximately 20 minutes.

Please direct questions or concerns to the Helpdesk. Thank you for your understanding.

Details
Yesterday, Friday October 24th, WPI's Exchange e-mail environment experienced a number of brief intermittent outages throughout the day. The outages were caused by a software incompatibility combined with a simultaneous hardware instability. The Windows Team worked during the day and into the evening to stabilize our infrastructure and resolve the issues.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve this unexpected service instability.

Details
On Friday, October 31st the WPI web server will be taken offline in order to install security updates and apply bug fixes. During the short down time, there will be no access to WPI web pages.

The following sites will be impacted:
www.wpi.edu
www.me.wpi.edu
www.cs.wpi.edu
www.gatewayparkworcester.com
www.infire.org
admissions.wpi.edu
www.mgt.wpi.edu
www.goddard.gigapop.net
www.wjfc.org
www.massacademy.org
www.grad.wpi.edu
www.wpiventureforum.org
www.faberc.org
cpe.wpi.edu
www.ece.wpi.edu
www.math.wpi.edu
www.vocesdelcaribe.org
alumni.wpi.edu
lego.wpi.edu

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
An Oracle upgrade is needed on our Banner database. Expected downtime is approximately 24 hours.

The following Banner services will be unavailable during the upgrade:
-Banner Web Information System
-Banner Forms (Production)
-ARD
-ODBC Connections to the Banner Database
-On-line conference payments
-Web Admissions applications
-On-line giving
-Course Schedule lookup
-CCC account creation and maintenance

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions on the down time. Should there be a major conflict, please let us know.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve the systems we support.

Details
The library's Voyager system will be off line on Monday-Tuesday, October 20-21, 2008, while the system is upgraded to Voyager release 7 and Oracle 10. As a result, the library catalog will be unavailable to library users and staff both days. Other services that run on library.wpi.edu will be unavailable, including interlibrary loan and other types of requests such as project reports and Founders storage. Library user account information also will not be accessible.

The library's electronic journals, databases, and electronic books are not affected by the Voyager upgrade and will be up and running.

We apologize for any disruption caused by the downtime. Please contact the library at ext. 6700 or library-answers@wpi.edu if you have questions or concerns.

Details
On September 30th starting at 6:00 a.m. our administrators will be applying operating system patches on the system that hosts WPI’s library system.

A short one hour downtime of the services mentioned in the impact section of this notice will result.

Library databases and electronic journals will not be affected by the planned downtime and should remain available.

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience. If you have a question or a concern please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience while we work to ensure the reliability of the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
On Monday September 15, 2008 our system administrators will take Big16 off line for about four hours in order to perform an Operating System upgrade. Big16.wpi.edu is a WPI compute research system used by faculty, staff, and students.

Login will not be possible to Big16 during the downtime. Please disconnect prior to the mentioned start time. Connected individuals will be disconnected if still logged in at the start of the upgrade.

We will be upgrading this server’s OS to Red Hat 5 Enterprise Linux. The upgrade is needed to improve system reliability. Currently, Big16 is experiencing random crashes and we feel an OS upgrade will eliminate this problem.

Please contact the Helpdesk with any questions or concerns.

Thank you for your understanding while we improve the services we offer the WPI community.

Details
A major upgrade of the Maximo work order software is being performed to add new features for the Department of Facilities and the WPI community. After the upgrade, the system will utilize Windows logins and passwords for authentication.

If you access the work order system with a username that is different from your Windows username, please send a request to the Helpdesk containing your current Maximo login to expedite the process of reestablishing your account.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we work to improve the systems we support.

Details
On Friday September 12th, 2008 we will be upgrading our SMTP email server. A downtime of approximately a half hour will occur as a result .

The WPI SMTP server is responsible for sending and receiving email to/from outside email addresses. We will be bringing it off-line in order to install an additional 8 gigabytes of memory.


If you have any questions or concerns about this downtime, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we offer the WPI community.

Details
We will be moving the Source Forge software to a new system because of a potential hardware failure of the current system. During the move we will also be patching Source Forge with the latest service pack and hot fix. The previous attempt to do so was aborted.

The outage should last about eight hours starting at 6:00 pm on August 27th. During the downtime, contributors to Source Forge will not be able to access their projects

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions regarding the down time.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
We expect this service interruption to be brief. Services should be restored no later than 8:00 pm but may be available much sooner.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to ensure the stability and security of the services we provide.

Details
Details:
Thurs. & Fri. - August 21st & 22nd
Helpdesk will be conducting student staff training on Thursday, August 21st & Friday, August 22nd. Since some Helpdesk staff and all Helpdesk student staff will be in training on these days, the Helpdesk will be short-staffed. Response times will be longer than usual and some callers may be diverted to voice mail.

Sunday, August 24th
Helpdesk will be open 9 am - 3 pm to assist new students and their families

Monday, August 25th
Helpdesk will be open from 8 am - 4 pm but closed from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. to prepare for evening Computer Network Setup visits to the First Year Residence Halls. Helpdesk will re-open at 6 pm and close at 10 pm.

Tues., August 26th & Wed., August 27th and first week of A-term – Helpdesk expects unusually high call volume on these days. Response times will be longer than usual and some callers may be diverted to voice mail.

We appreciate the understanding and support of the WPI Community as we work to address the needs of all those who seek our assistance. Thank you in advance for your patience during this busy time.

Details
On Thursday, August 21st at 6:00 A.M. UNIX systems will be rebooted in order to prepare services for the upcoming year. Connections to all UNIX services will be refused during the restart period.

Please contact the Helpdesk with any questions or concerns.

Thank you for your patience while we work to ensure the reliability of the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
A disk subsystem error caused an outage of Unix mail services yesterday. This caused a delay in delivery of email to the WPI Unix mail hub. The outage started at 3:41 pm and lasted until 8:22 pm. During the outage, Unix mail was not accessible. Email was not lost as a result of the downtime.

Internal Exchange mail was not impacted by this outage. Exchange users may have noticed a delivery delay in mail messages which originated from or passed through the Unix mail servers.

Unix email services are now restored.

If you have questions or concerns about yesterday’s outage, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your patience as we worked to resolve this issue.

Details
Our Unix administrators will be performing an upgrade of the software and hardware that runs the WPI Unix Webmail interface. The upgrade will begin on Thursday, August 14th starting at 6:00 A.M. and last about an hour.

We will be upgrading WPI Unix webmail to SquirrelMail 1.4.15. This will enhance the security and feature set of WPI webmail. New features include optional secure email (GPG encrypted) and a display of current weather conditions at WPI.

The new software will be running on new Sun 64 Bit Opteron hardware. The system will be much faster and will be supported by RedHat 5 Linux.

Those connected into their Unix email via the web interface at the time of the downtime will be disconnected. Unix webmail will not be available during the upgrade. To reduce the risk of data loss please log out of webmail.wpi.edu prior to the downtime.

Email received during the downtime will be available in squirrelmail following the upgrade. IMAP and POP connections to the Unix email server will not be affected. Unix mailboxes will still receive new email. Only the Unix web interface will be impacted.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding while we improve the services we offer the WPI community.

Details
On August 12th at 6:00 a.m. our Unix administrators will be swapping the hardware that runs the Unix ccc.wpi.edu servers. They will be replacing the current computers with new Sun 64 Bit Opteron hardware. The new systems will be much faster and will be supported by RedHat 5 Linux. These systems will be loaded with the latest versions of Matlab, Maple, Oracle, SQLPlus, Comsol, and Pine.

To reduce the risk of data loss, please close any open files and exit out of any open sessions to ccc.wpi.edu prior to the system swap. Connection attempts will be rejected during the downtime.

Any questions or concerns should be sent to the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding while we improve the services we offer the WPI community.

Details
We will be moving the Source Forge software to a new system because of a potential hardware failure of the current system. During the move we will also be patching Source Forge with the latest service pack and hot fix.

The outage should last an hour starting at 6:00AM on August 11th. During the downtime, contributors to Source Forge will not be able to access their projects

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions regarding the down time.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
The PBX hardware is being replaced with a faster central processing unit (CPU). The scheduled upgrades should provide some useful enhancements to our current phone service offerings.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we provide.

Details
A major upgrade of myWPI will address known issues and will offer additional features to myWPI users. No action is required by users. Details on new features available as a result of the upgrade will be forthcoming.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we work to improve the systems we support.

Frequently Asked Questions
==================================================
Here are some answers to questions users may have about the upgrade:

What about E-term grades?
=========================
This upgrade has been scheduled to occur after the E-term 10 week course grades are due to the Registrar on August 6, 2008 at 5:00 PM (EDT). Grades for the 5 and 7 week E-term courses were already due. Students may check their final course grades online from the Student Web Information System at http://bannerweb.wpi.edu. Course sites remain available for 21 days after the end of a term, so students will still be able to access their E-term sites following the upgrade to review grades on individual assignments. If you need a course site to remain available for longer than 21 days after the end of E-term, send a request to myhelp@wpi.edu .

I need a course/organization/project-group site. What should I do?
====================================================================
Course or Organization site requests submitted using the forms found at http://www.wpi.edu/+Collaboratory/HowTo/MyWPI/forms.html will still be processed before and after the upgrade, usually within two business days. However, during the downtime, we will not be able to process any site requests. Any submissions during this time will be queued until after the upgrade is complete.

What will happen if I am working on a course or organization site prior to the upgrade? Will I lose my content?
====================================================================
No content will be lost in any myWPI sites. You will simply lose access to your site during the upgrade. Following the upgrade your myWPI site will appear exactly as it did before. The only major changes will be to an improved Gradebook.

Following the upgrade, will I still be able to copy content from prior courses like I could before?
=================================================================
Yes, prior course content will still be available for copying into current and future course sites.

What resources will be available for learning about the new features that will be available?
==================================================================
Prior to the upgrade, an announcement with details about the new features will be sent via e-mail. That announcement will include a link to a webpage showing the new features. Also, the myWPI Help and Support Site (http://www.wpi.edu/+Collaboratory/HowTo/MyWPI/ ) is being updated to reflect the changes in the upgrade. Additionally, training sessions will be offered near the beginning of A-term and the myHelp team will be happy to provide one-on-one assistance if you contact them at myhelp@wpi.edu.

Details
Systems Administrators worked overnight and early this morning to resolve network file share access issues that WPI Community members were experiencing over the course of the business day yesterday. The changes made overnight should yield positive results.

Access to files stored on network file shares should be restored. Anyone who continues to have problems should contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

Thank you for your patience as we worked to resolve these issues and restore services.

Details
This morning, Helpdesk began fielding reports that some users were having difficulties accessing files stored on network file shares.

Systems administrators have been working to resolve these issues. In an attempt to fix the problem and restore connections, the file server was rebooted at noontime. Connections were briefly restored for some users, but the resolution was short-lived.

Currently, the cause is unknown. Systems administrators continue to work to resolve this issue.

Thank you for your patience while we work to restore the reliability of this service.

We will keep the community informed as new information becomes available.

Details
Testing has uncovered unforeseen problems which will not allow us to upgrade our Banner database today (06/20/08). We will need to postpone the upgrade until a not yet determined date.

An Oracle upgrade is needed on our Banner database.

The following Banner services will be unavailable during the upgrade:

-Banner Web Information System
-Banner Forms (Production)
-ARD
-ODBC Connections to the Banner Database
-On-line conference payments
-Web Admissions applications
-On-line giving
-Course Schedule lookup
-CCC account creation and maintenance

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions on the down time. Should there be a major conflict, please let us know.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve the systems we support.

Details
An Oracle upgrade is needed on our Banner database. Expected downtime is approximately 24 hours.

The following Banner services will be unavailable during the upgrade:

-Banner Web Information System
-Banner Forms (Production)
-ARD
-ODBC Connections to the Banner Database
-On-line conference payments
-Web Admissions applications
-On-line giving
-Course Schedule lookup
-CCC account creation and maintenance

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions on the down time. Should there be a major conflict, please let us know.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve the systems we support.

Details
Overnight, our Exchange e-mail infrastructure encountered a storage problem and automatic preventative software measures cleanly shutdown our Exchange databases to prevent data corruption. IT staff worked continuously to remedy the issue and bring our Exchange services back online. Their efforts were successful and services were restored around 1:00 pm.

Please contact the Helpdesk with any follow-up questions or concerns that you may have about the outage.

We apologize for the inconvenience this outage caused. We thank you for your patience and understanding while we worked to restore e-mail services and maintain the integrity of WPI e-mail data.

Details
The Helpdesk received its first report of the Exchange server being down on 6/17/2008 at 7:47:59 AM. Our administrators are working very hard to correct this issue. No estimated down time is available.

WPI members that have their email residing on the Exchange server will not be able to access their mail via Outlook Web Access (http://exchange.wpi.edu) or through email clients such as Microsoft Outlook.

Should you require additional assistance or have questions, please contact the Helpdesk at the contact information above.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding.

Details
During the dates of Monday, June 23rd through Friday, July 4th maintenance will be performed on all STUDENT exchange mailboxes. Work is set to run during the 2 a.m. - 5 a.m. service window on the mentioned date time frame.

This maintenance will allow us to continue to achieve high performance on our Exchange databases and reorganize the number of mailboxes per database as defined by Microsoft’s best practices.

Maintenance is performed per mailbox and will take approximately 15 minutes on average to process. Some mailboxes may be impacted for shorter or longer periods of time. Affected users are advised to wait until after the 5 a.m. service window to attempt to access their mailbox.

Please contact the Helpdesk with any questions or concerns you may have about the maintenance.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
An Oracle upgrade is needed on our Banner database. We have re-scheduled it for next Friday the 20th, beginning at 5pm. Expected downtime is approximately 24 hours.

The following Banner services will be unavailable during the upgrade:

-Banner Web Information System
-Banner Forms (Production)
-ARD
-ODBC Connections to the Banner Database
-On-line conference payments
-Web Admissions applications
-On-line giving
-Course Schedule lookup
-CCC account creation and maintenance

Please feel free to contact the Helpdesk with any questions on the down time. Should there be a major conflict, please let us know.

Thank you for your patience and understanding as we work to improve the systems we support.

Details
The Gordon Library Catalog will be unavailable on Tuesday, June 3, 2008, starting at 7:30 A.M. so that library staff can install the latest patch to the Voyager library management system. The patch adds a direct link from the catalog record view page to Google Book Search and allows users to take advantage of Google Book Search features such as full text, book previews, cover thumbnails, and more. If there is a match between library catalog search results and Google Book Search, users will see a "Google Books" link on the catalog record view page.

Details
On May 23rd 2008 Matlab will be updated on the CCC Matlab server. As a result, the license server for Matlab will be down for an hour until the software update is complete.

Those looking to run CCC versions of Matlab during the upgrade will not be able to do so and will receive a license server error. The license server will be restored once the server upgrade is complete.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
The WPI web server will be taken offline in order to install security updates and apply bug fixes. During the short down time, there will be no access to WPI web pages.

If you have any questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
On Sunday May 11th, the first report of this phishing attempt was reported to the WPI Helpdesk. The message appeared to come from Wpi Internet Support. The email was sent to campus in an attempt to solicit passwords from our community, and was not from WPI IT. This is the second recent occurrence, as a very similar phishing attempt was made against WPI in April.

Phishing is a method of tricking people into giving up their personal information. This can be done by asking users to reply with information, and/or, with spyware. For example, perpetrators may get victims to click on a link that takes them to a Web site where they are subject to a drive-by download.

In the future, if you receive a similar message that you are unsure of, please contact the Helpdesk prior to following any of the links. You also do not want to download or open any of the attached files.

If you have received the mentioned message in your inbox, please delete the message and contact the Helpdesk to look into junk mail filtering options. Do not reply with your password!

Should you have any questions or concerns about phishing or the recent attack, please contact the Helpdesk at the contact information provided above.

For more ways to avoid becoming a phishing victim, please see the following link:
http://www.apwg.org/consumer_recs.html

For more general information on phishing, please see the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Thank you.

Details
Starting on May 12th all WPI students, staff, and faculty who wish to use CCC licensed academic software from off campus will need to first authenticate using the WPI VPN (Virtual Private Network).

On-campus access to our CCC licensed academic software will not change. The VPN is not needed for on-campus access.

Should you have any questions, please contact the WPI Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation while we work to secure the services we offer to the WPI community.

Details
Office 2007 will be deployed to all Faculty and Staff ADMIN domain systems after business hours (5:00 pm EDT) on Monday, May 19. Systems may be rebooted once the installation is finished. Systems with Office 2007 already installed may have additional patches installed to bring them fully up to date and may be rebooted as well.

On the evening of the scheduled deployment, please log off, but leave your computer powered on. Do not shutdown your computer. We recommend you add a reminder to your calendar to log off of your computer at the end of your workday on May 19. Deployments for machines not on the network at that time will be done the next day after 5pm.

Should a department be adversely impacted by the May 19th rollout please contact the Helpdesk to reschedule the upgrade to an earlier date or at some point prior to the end of June, 2008.

The installation procedure will take approximately an hour for most computers. Any previous versions of Microsoft Office Products will be removed (or uninstalled) from the computer and the new versions of the following products will be installed: Word, Excel, Access, PowerPoint, Outlook, InfoPath and Publisher.

Other Microsoft product installations will not be affected, including installations of Visio, Project and FrontPage. We plan to deploy updated versions of Visio and Project later in the summer. More information about this will come in a later IT News bulletin.

Access databases should work as expected under access 2007. Users who encounter database problems can contact the Helpdesk who can recommend a consultant to assist. The CCC does not support custom Access databases.

More information about known issues and workarounds can be found on the helpdesk website at http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Help/Software/office2007.html.

Training for Microsoft Office 2007 topics are currently available from the ATC instruction website at
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/ATC/Instruction/. To register, click the ‘Schedule & Registration’ link.

Please contact the Helpdesk (call Ext. 5888 or e-mail helpdesk@wpi.edu) with any questions or concerns regarding this process.

Thank you.

Details
We are delaying plans to upgrade myWPI (powered by Blackboard) and are instead opting to perform system maintenance.

The vendor is expected to make offerings available later this summer that will benefit the WPI community. Postponing the upgrade to August will allow us to take full advantage of the anticipated offerings. Specific upgrade dates and details of the new features that will be included in the upgrade will be publicized in the near future.

During the May 5th downtime, regular system maintenance will be performed and will include the application of a security related patch.

If you have any questions regarding this or the August upgrade, please contact myhelp@wpi.edu.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
WPI IT staff will NEVER ask you for your password. If you have provided your password mistakenly, contact the Helpdesk immediately.

Phishing is a method of tricking people into giving up their personal information. This can be done by asking users to reply with information, and/or, with spyware. For example, perpetrators may get victims to click on a link that takes them to a Web site where they are subject to a drive-by download.

In the future, if you receive a similar message that you are unsure of, please contact the Helpdesk prior to following any of the links. You also do not want to download or open any of the attached files.

If you have received the mentioned message in your inbox, please delete the message and contact the Helpdesk to look into junk mail filtering options.

Should you have any questions or concerns about phishing or the recent attack, please contact the Helpdesk at the contact information provided above.

For more ways to avoid beocoming a phishing victim, please see the following link:
http://www.apwg.org/consumer_recs.html

For more general information on phishing, please see the following link:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Phishing

Thank you.

Details
For security purposes, Windows account passwords expire every six months. Previously, people were only notified of a password expiration upon login to a WPI domain computer or when accessing WPI Exchange email (exchange.wpi.edu). Since not everyone logs in using these methods, some people never knew their password was about to expire.

In an effort to move toward single sign-on, the Windows password is often used by 3rd party systems like myWPI (my.wpi.edu), the Web Information System (bannerweb.wpi.edu) or the VPN (Virtual Private Network) client. While convenient, these tools are unable to interpret the Windows password expiration warning. As a result, people accessing these systems are unaware of a password expiration. Once the password has expired, access to these systems fails until the password is reset.

To address this problem and minimize disruptions, we have added a new email notification to the password expiration warning process. Now, people whose Windows passwords are due to expire will receive an email notification. The notices will be sent to the WPI email address by helpdesk@wpi.edu prior to the expiration date at 15 days prior, 7 days prior, and the day before the expiration date until the password expires or is reset.

Once the password is reset, the notices will stop. Directions for resetting the password online are provided within the notification. For help choosing a secure password, please see: http://www.wpi.edu/+Helpdesk/Accounts/securepassword.html

Should you have any questions, please free to contact the Helpdesk.

Details
On Thursday, March 6, 2008 starting at 6:00 am, the Computer Science (CS) Oracle database server will be taken offline for about two hours. The oracle database will be patched with the latest security updates.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
A major upgrade of myWPI will address known issues and will offer additional features to myWPI users. No action is required by users. Details on new features available as a result of the upgrade will be forthcoming in April.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we work to improve the systems we support.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some answers to questions users may have about the upgrade:

What about D-term and Spring semester grades?
This upgrade has been scheduled to occur after the D-term and Spring semester course grades are due to the Registrar on May 2, 2008 at 5:00 PM (EDT). Students may check their final course grades online from the Student Web Information System at http://bannerweb.wpi.edu. Course sites remain available for 21 days after the end of a term, so students will still be able to access their D-term sites following the upgrade to review grades on individual assignments. If you need a course site to remain available for longer than 21 days after the end of D-term, send a request to myhelp@wpi.edu.

I need a course/organization/project-group site. What should I do?
Course or Organization site requests submitted using the forms found at http://www.wpi.edu/+Collaboratory/HowTo/MyWPI/forms.html will still be processed before and after the upgrade, usually within two business days. However, during the downtime, we will not be able to process any site requests. Any submissions during this time will be queued until after the upgrade is complete.

What will happen if I am working on a course or organization site prior to the upgrade? Will I lose my content?
No content will be lost in any myWPI sites. You will simply lose access to your site during the upgrade. Following the upgrade your myWPI site will appear exactly as it did before. The only major changes will be to an improved Gradebook.


Following the upgrade, will I still be able to copy content from prior courses like I could before?
Yes, prior course content will still be available for copying into current and future course sites.

What resources will be available for learning about the new features that will be available?
Prior to the upgrade, an announcement with details about the new features will be sent via e-mail. That announcement will include a link to a webpage showing the new features. Also, the myWPI Help and Support Site (http://www.wpi.edu/+Collaboratory/HowTo/MyWPI/) is being updated to reflect the changes in the upgrade. Additionally, training sessions will be offered near the beginning of E-term and the myHelp team will be happy to provide one-on-one assistance if you contact them at myhelp@wpi.edu.

Details
Following the weekend maintenance to the primary file server (enterprise.wpi.edu), there were reports of problems mapping drive letters to \\admin file shares. Services were restored at around 10 am this morning.

If drive mapping problems persist, the drive mapping may need to be disconnected and then remapped to restore connectivity. Please be sure to map shares to \\admin\fc (for on campus users), and \\admin.wpi.edu (for off campus users). More information about drive mapping can be found via: http://www.wpi.edu/+Helpdesk/Network/Mapping/

Note: the use of \\enterprise and \\enterprise.wpi.edu has been discontinued. Please replace existing enterprise drive mappings with \\admin paths mentioned above.

If you continue to experience trouble connecting, or require any assistance with using \\admin files shares please contact the Helpdesk for assistance.

We apologize for any inconvenience this may have caused and thank you for your understanding as we worked to restore full functionality to the business file shares.

Details
All file shares should remain accessible during the maintenance.

Over the course of the past week, Helpdesk has been fielding reports of issues with the file share servers that have caused intermittent disruptions such lag times when opening ‘My Computer’, unresponsive applications and the inability to connect to shared drives. These disruptions typically have been cleared within 10-15 minutes once discovered. The maintenance planned for this weekend should resolve the situation.

In order to make sure all files are available we are making changes to how some Windows users and all Macintosh users access business file shares. These changes will take effect immediately and should be used going forward.

Macintosh Users:
When connecting to a business file share please replace “ENTERPRISE” with “SHARES” in the connection path (e.g. “smb://enterprise.wpi.edu/fc_ccc” becomes “smb://shares.wpi.edu/fc_ccc”. Users should begin making this change immediately. For assistance please visit:http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Help/Network/Mapping/onosx.html

Windows Users:
Users connecting to file shares using the \\admin.wpi.edu or \\students.admin.wpi.edu path require no change.
Off-campus VPN users mapping shares with \\enterprise.wpi.edu should map shares using \\admin.wpi.edu or \\student.admin.wpi.edu as appropriate from now on.
For more information about mapping drives visit: http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Help/Network/Mapping/

We apologize for the disruptions that have been caused. Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we work to restore the stability of these services.

Details
Over the past week the CMS has been experiencing intermittent slow response times. We are working with RedDot Support to resolve this issue. Prior known resolutions have proved unsuccessful.

We will continue to work with RedDot to get this issue resolved as soon as possible.

We will notify RedDot editors and approvers once editing and approval capabilities have been restored.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation while we work to restore these services.

Details
We are scheduling a down time in order to swap out the hardware on our primary domain name server this Friday 01/25/2008 at 6:00 A.M.

The down time should only last a few minutes, and additional name servers are in place. Computers connected to the WPI network may experience network name resolution slowness or failure.

Should you have any questions, or, notice residual issues after the down time please contact the Helpdesk.

Thank you for your understanding as we work to improve the systems and services we provide to the WPI community.

Details
An upgrade of the IEEE Xplore Digital Library is scheduled for Saturday, January 26, 2008. During this deployment, the system will be unavailable for up to up to eight hours beginning at approximately 9:00 AM ET. As a result of this new release, the IEEE Xplore digital library will be enhanced with: Support of OpenURL images and custom text will enable customers to post their logo or text in their OpenURL links. Conference Proceedings weekly update alerts will allow a user to receive weekly update alerts for every conference title via either email or RSS whenever a new conference proceeding title is added to IEEE Xplore. Scitopia.org search from the IEEE Xplore home page will enable users to easily search scitopia.org, the free federated search portal to the digital libraries of leading science and technology societies. Draft standards search will let users limit their search to IEEE draft standards only from the Advanced Search page in IEEE Xplore.

We apologize in advance for any inconvenience. Please contact the library if you have any questions.

Details
As a result of poor weather, the Helpdesk is closed today. Please email the helpdesk should you require computer assistance.

If your issue is urgent, please email the Helpdesk with a high importance flag. We will do our best to get back to you as quickly as possible.

Thank you for your understanding.

Details
Before classes resume, we will deploy the Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) upgrade to all windows systems (ADMIN and STUDENT domains). IE7 provides many security updates that make using the browser safer.

This upgrade was released last year, at which time we began testing. We have verified that it works properly with all of our web services. Over the summer we deployed IE7 on all new PCs as well as the public computer labs, electronic classrooms, and ATC loaner laptops.

Some of the major features of IE7 are the following:
• Tabbed Browsing – allows for multiple web pages to be open in a single window.
• Integrated Search – integrates the ability to access various search engines (Google, Yahoo, Live, Wikipedia, and Amazon) directly from the browser.
• RSS Feeds – Allows you to subscribe to RSS syndicated web pages within Internet Explorer.
• Phishing Filter – Includes an option to check a page against known Phishing sites. Phishing is the process of using fake sites that look like real sites (such as PayPal, eBay, various banks) to acquire identity information.

For more information on IE7 check out: http://www.microsoft.com/windows/products/winfamily/ie/features.mspx

This software will be deployed via the Windows Automatic Updates and will occur overnight without the need for action on the part of our users. If you are using a third party browser then this update should not impact your ability to use that third party browser.

Existing settings such as Favorites, Proxy Settings, Trusted Sites and Pop-up settings will not be affected by the upgrade.

Please address any questions or concerns to the Helpdesk calling x5888, (508)831-5888 or e-mail helpdesk@wpi.edu.

Thank you for your cooperation as we work to ensure the safety and security of WPI information technology resources.

Details
With this upgrade, Outlook Web Access (OWA) functionality is greatly improved. For those using OWA (Not RPC over HTTP), you are now able to utilize many of the powerful features the Outlook client application has available such as:

•Create or edit personal distribution lists and server side rules
•View Office 2007 attachments as a web page
•View a monthly calendar
•Move or copy folders using a command in the right-click menu of the folder list
•Move or copy individual items in message folders by right-clicking inside the item list or by clicking an icon on the toolbar
•Use the Recover Deleted Items feature

Thank you for your understanding while we work to maintain the services we provide to the WPI community!

Details
Emergency maintenance is needed on a battery that powers a storage controller for Banner (Production). All users connected to Banner (INB or Self Service) will lose their connection at 09:00 PM. Users will again be able to access Banner again at approximately 10:00 pm tonight.

Following the downtime, all users should be able to log into Banner Production through the “Banner Production” link on www.admin.wpi.edu.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the Helpdesk at the contact information above.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to resolve this problem.

Details
This morning, users trying to access Banner INB forms received a Forbidden access error. We have corrected the security settings that are causing the problem, but those corrected settings will not take affect until we reboot the server.

All users connected to INB forms through “other banner options” will lose their connection.

Following the reboot, all users should be able to log into Banner Production INB through the “Banner Production” link once again.

Should you have any questions or concerns, please feel free to contact the Helpdesk at the contact information above.

Thank you for your patience while we worked to rectify this problem - we appreciate it!

Details
A reboot is required in order for security updates and patches to take effect. We will reboot our systems on 11/19/2007 at 6:00 A.M. EST. Down time should only last approximately a half hour.

The following services will not be available during the planned down time: www.wpi.edu, webmail.wpi.edu, and webwork.wpi.edu

Should you have questions or concerns, please contact the Helpdesk. They will be happy to be of assistance.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to maintain the services we provide to the WPI community!

Details
The current print server “UNIPRINT” is being phased out. All print requests are being moved to our new print server “PRINTERS”. Beginning on Monday December 3rd, 2007 we will be decommissioning “UNIPRINT” and only supporting printing to “PRINTERS”. Existing printers on all computers in the ADMIN and STUDENT Domain have already been migrated to the new print server. For example, if you had an existing printer named \\uniprint\printername, it was automatically replaced by \\printers\printername.

This is the final notice for users still manually using printers on “UNIPRINT”, to change over to “PRINTERS”. It is encouraged for people who have computers not on the domain to migrate their printers to the new print server. Please utilize the following script to perform this printer change for computers not on the domain.

\\enterprise.wpi.edu\installpoint\printers\

Please follow the instructions in the ReadMe.txt file.

Details
Unfortunately, the newly restored database housing affected mailboxes had not yet had a chance to replicate to the other servers prior to the unexpected server crash. The database store was corrupted again during the crash. For this reason, these users are still unable to access their mailboxes.

Since we have a good recent backup of this data store, restoration will be quicker than it was over the weekend. We anticipate restoration will complete prior to Midnight tonight. We hope it may complete several hours pior to midnight, but we cannot be sure.

We are deeply sorry for the impact this will have on affected students who were just getting back to normal. We could not have forseen this server failure. Server failures do happen, but redundancy usually minimizes the impact. The circumstances of this failure are unique as they came at a time when this particular database store was unusually vulnerable.

Details
Wednesday morning, November 7th, just after 8:00 AM (EST), there was a database failure for a group of users in Exchange. This problem has affected STUDENT Exchange users with last names beginning with the letters D through H plus one additional student.

The database merge is complete, and all mail should be restored to the affected students' mailboxes.

We believe the cause of this failure can be tracked to our virus scanning software, which caused the corruption of the database. We have taken steps to ensure that this issue will not occur again.

We apologize for the inconvenience this outage has caused to both the students affected and the faculty, staff, students and external users who have attempted to contact them via email.

THANK YOU for the patience you have expressed while we worked to rectify this problem – we appreciate it!

Details
Banner will be unavailable while several major upgrades are applied to the application. Because of the scope of the upgrades all services supplied by Banner will be unavailable.

The downtime is expected to run from Friday at 5pm through Sunday. We may be able to restore Services on Sunday depending on the progress of the upgrade process.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to maintain the services provided to the WPI Community.

Details
Wednesday morning, just after 8:00 AM (EST), there was a database failure for a group of users in Exchange. This problem has affected STUDENT Exchange users with last names beginning with the letters D through H plus one additional student.

Over the course of the last 48 hours, the Windows Team has been actively working with Microsoft support to determine the cause of this problem and to properly recover the database. The database has been recovered, and is now being merged into the temporary database created on Wednesday evening. Saved mail will continue to be restored to the affected users’ Exchange mailboxes over the weekend.

We believe the cause of this failure can be tracked to our virus scanning software, which caused the corruption of the database. We have taken steps to ensure that this issue will not occur again.
We apologize for the inconvenience this outage has caused to both the students affected and the faculty, staff, students and external users who have attempted to contact them via email.

THANK YOU for the patience you have expressed while we worked to rectify this problem – we appreciate it!

Details
Yesterday morning (11/7), just after 9:00 AM (EST), there was a database failure for a group of users in Exchange. This problem has affected STUDENT Exchange users with last names beginning with the letters D through H plus one additional student.

Over the course of the last 30 hours our systems administrators have been actively working with Microsoft Support to determine the cause of this problem and the correct procedure for repairing the issue.

We are working on a data restore process that may take a long duration to complete. In order to minimize the impact on the day to day work of the students affected, as well as those that need to contact them, we have reinstated the temporary database for them to use. Once the restore process has completed we will attempt to merge the restored data to those mailboxes. We will continue to work on the issue this evening, and the temporary database may become unavailable at any time.

We apologize for the inconvenience this outage has caused to both the students affected and the faculty, staff, students and external users who have attempted to contact them via email. If we have new information to report, we will send another update to the community this evening. Otherwise, we will provide a status update at start of business tomorrow morning.

We thank you for your patience throughout this process.

Details
We have corrected intermittent issues mentioned in our October 24th IT news post. Terminal services on the windows.wpi.edu resume as normal. Thank you for your patience and your understanding on this matter.

The terminal server was experiencing some system instability. This has been corrected, and users are no longer required to take extra precautions to avoid potential data loss. Please note that all users should still save your data regularly, and in the appropriate network share while connected to the terminal server. Please do not save your documents to the local directories on the terminal server.

The terminal server acts as a virtual lab and provides access to a variety of software resources. It used primarily by students, some faculty and some staff. Should you wish to know how to access the Windows terminal server from off campus or on campus, please see the link below.

More information about the terminal server can be found online at:
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Help/Software/termserv.html

Details
We are currently experiencing intermittent problems with the terminal server services (windows.wpi.edu).

Our systems administrators are working with vendor support to resolve the issue. While we work to resolve the issue, terminal server services may be unreliable. Users are advised to be cautious when making use of the terminal server until the issue has been resolved. Frequent file saves would be prudent until the issues have been resolved. Be advised that when using the terminal server it is always best to save data to your personal network file share and not on the terminal server.

Thank you for your understanding as we work to resolve this issue and restore these important services.

More information about the terminal server can be found online at:
http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Help/Software/termserv.html

Details
Over the past 24 hours we have received reports of intermittent access problems to some areas within the course control panel by faculty. We will attempt to correct this by restarting all services for the myWPI system at 10:00 PM EDT tonight.

The long term solution for this will be the system patch and database maintenance already scheduled for Friday morning. If you are having problems that cannot wait until after the system reboot, please contact the Helpdesk (x5888, helpdesk@wpi.edu) and we will try to work with you to provide a work-around.

Details
The myWPI server requires maintenance which will result in 4 hours of downtime on October 19, 2007 from 4:00 AM - 8:00 AM EDT. Security patches will be applied and system maintenance will be performed.

We realize how dependent the WPI Community is on this service. To minimize the impact to the community, we are planning this downtime in the early hours of the morning. Any concerns about this outage or the downtime schedule should be addressed to the Helpdesk at helpdesk@wpi.edu .

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we work to maintain the health and security of this very important resource.

Details
During this upgrade Matlab will be upgraded to version 2007b. This upgrade includes bug fixes and updates as well as some new features to benefit Matlab users. Maple will be upgraded to version 11.01. This product release includes software updates and bug fixes.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to maintain the services provided to the WPI Community.

Details
Sourceforge is a secure, centralized solution for managing distrubuted development. It is used primarily for version tracking in conjunction with development projects. This upgrade will bring us to SourceForge release 4.4 Enterprise Edition. The upgrade will provide bug fixes and offer new funtionality. The subversion, postgres software will be updated and there will be increased wiki page functionality as well as support for java 5 in the new release.

From 6:00 am to about 10:00 am on 10/22/2007 (Note: change of date!), Sourceforge will be unavailable due to a scheduled server upgrade. Sourceforge users should plan accordingly.

Thank you for your understanding and cooperation as we work to improve the services we provide.

Details
During this upgrade Matlab will be upgraded to version 2007b. This upgrade includes bug fixes and updates as well as some new features to benefit Matlab users. Maple will be upgraded to version 11.01. This product release includes software updates and bug fixes.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to maintain the services provided to the WPI Community.

Details
Earlier today, Helpdesk received reports that some users were experiencing intermittent connectivity issues beginning around 10 pm Friday night and into Saturday morning.

This interfered with access to services such as myWPI and Outlook Web Access. IT staff have been investigating the reports.

At this point, access to the services seems to have been restored. Most users seemed to regain access around mid-afternoon.

Details
The current print server “UNIPRINT” is being phased out. All print requests are being moved to our new print server “PRINTERS”. Beginning on Monday October 15th, 2007 we will be supporting printing to both “UNIPRINT” and “PRINTERS”. Existing printers on all computers in the ADMIN and STUDENT Domain will be migrated to the new print server upon the first login or reboot without any need for user interaction. For example, if you have an existing printer named \\uniprint\printername, it will be automatically replaced by \\printers\printername.

A further notice will be posted in the coming weeks when “UNIPRINT” is planned for removal in which all print jobs will be processed by “PRINTERS”. It is encouraged for people who have computers not on the domain to migrate their printers to the new print server. Please utilize the following script to perform this printer change for computers not on the domain.

\\enterprise.wpi.edu\installpoint\printers\

Please follow the instructions in the ReadMe.txt file.

Details
Windows Terminal Services’ hardware is being upgraded for increased performance and reliability. Connections to the Windows Terminal Server can be accessed by connecting to Windows.wpi.edu from a remote desktop client. For people not on campus, connection to the VPN (http://vpn.wpi.edu) is required prior to connecting to the Terminal Server.

For more information about Terminal Services please review the Helpdesk information page for this service: http://www.wpi.edu/Academics/CCC/Help/Software/termserv.html

Details
There will be no cable television service during this outage.

Areas impacted will include those facilities equipped with televisions connected to the Cable TV network, including:

- Residence Halls

- Electronic Classrooms and technology equipped meeting spaces, including the TV Studio

- Common/Public areas equipped with televisions.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
The Banner Web Information system web site will be unavailable on Monday, October 8th for 1 hour beginning approximately 8:00 am EDT while new hardware is installed.

Any "bookmarks" you may have for this server will not work after the change. The address http://bannerweb.wpi.edu will continue to work after the server change, and is the address that should be saved.

Details
Please be advised that a necessary power outage scheduled today in Higgins Labs (5:30-6:30 pm, 9/27/2007) will impact the availability of some software and systems served by servers residing in that building.

The following software products are served from systems that reside in Higgins Labs and will be unavailable during the power outage:
- All PTC products (ProENGINEER, etc...)
- Unigraphics
- Tecplot
- Ansys
- Nastran
- patran
- Fluent
- Abaqus
- Thermal
- truegrid
- lsdyna
- SGI Compilers and all Sun Compilers

In addition, home and research directories as well as compute systems housed on the Sun and Linux systems that reside in Higgins Labs will be unavailable during the outage.

We apologize for the inconvenience this may cause and appreciate your understanding.

Details
We will be installing new software on our web server that will result in a quick down time of the www.wpi.edu web sites. This is set to occur early morning on Monday the 10th. We greatly appreciate your patience during the down time.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
Thurs. & Fri. - August 16 & 17
Helpdesk will be conducting student staff training on Thursday,
August 16th & Friday, August 17th. Since some Helpdesk staff and all Helpdesk student staff will be in training on these days, the Helpdesk will be short-staffed and will likely experience high call volume. Response times will be longer than usual and some callers may be diverted to voice mail. Please leave a detailed message. Helpdesk staff will respond as soon as possible.

Sunday, August 19th -
Helpdesk will be open 9 am - 3 pm to assist new students and their families

Monday, August 20th -
Helpdesk will be open from 8 am - 4 pm. Helpdesk will be closed from 4 p.m. – 6 p.m. to prepare for evening Computer Network Setup visits to the First Year Residence Halls. Helpdesk will re-open at 6 pm and close at 10 pm.

Tues., August 21st & Wed., August 22nd and first week of A-term - Helpdesk expects unusually high call volume on these days. Response times will be longer than usual and some callers may be diverted to voice mail. Callers as asked to leave a detailed message.
Helpdesk staff will respond as soon as possible.

We appreciate the understanding and support of the WPI Community as we work to address the needs of all those who seek our assistance. Thank you in advance for your patience during this busy time.

Details
The Banner Production server is being upgraded. The upgrade will install a new version of oracle application server, and increase resources, to improve performance. During the upgrade, Banner Production will be unavailable.

Following the upgrade a new Java plug-in will be required to access Banner Forms through a web browser. Web browser should automatically seek to install the new plug-in on first login to Banner Forms. This installation may take a few moments and may result in a browser security question. When asked if the source should be trusted, the answer should be "Always Trust". In order to ensure that the correct version of Java remains on the computer, you should not install newer Java versions. Disabling Java automatic updates will help prevent this.

Once these tasks have been completed on a computer, Banner Forms access should be restored. These actions may need to be replicated on all computers used to access Banner Production

We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause and thank you for your understanding as we work to improve the services we provide.

Details
We are migrating our Exchange mail environment to new hardware and also upgrading from Exchange 2003 to 2007. This upgrade will provide users with greater reliability, increased performance, additional features, and will allow us to continue to expand mail services to serve the needs of the WPI community.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we work to improve the systems we support.

Frequently Asked Questions

Here are some answers to questions users may have about the upgrade:

Will I lose any mail?
No, all incoming mail will be queued during the upgrade process, and will be delivered as soon as the mailbox migration has completed.

What impact is there to people with Windows Mobile Devices?
Users with Windows Mobile Devices may see a synchronization error the first time they attempt to synch after their mailbox is migrated. Users may have to reconfigure their synchronization settings if they synchronize folders other than the defaults. Please contact the helpdesk with any further issues. No email should be lost as a result of these synchronization issues.

What are the new features that will be available after this upgrade?
The most noticeable change will be an improved Outlook Web Access (OWA) experience, both for Internet Explorer users as well as users of some third party internet browsers. (e.g. Firefox, Safari, Opera) Also of interest is the ability to schedule Out of Office auto-response messages for users with Outlook 2007 or via OWA.
For those who would like to view a demo of what the new OWA looks like, follow this link:

http://www.microsoft.com/exchange/code/OWA/index.html

Will I still be able to connect to exchange.wpi.edu using POP or IMAP?
Yes, as with Exchange 2003, the new version will provide the ability for third party mail clients to connect via Secure POP or Secure IMAP. Users should not have to update any settings after the upgrade.

Should I close anything before my mailbox is migrated, or during the weekend of downtime?
If your Outlook client was open during the migration, you will be notified that you will need to restart your Outlook client in order to reconnect. Please close your Outlook Client during the weekend of August 4th-5th. The upgrade process should not require any additional user intervention.

Details
The main WPI web server (www.wpi.edu) is scheduled for a brief outage on Thursday morning, July 12, 2007 starting at 6:00 am. The outage should last no more than 30 minutes and is necessary to perform system maintenance which includes required security updates and a memory replacement.

We are scheduling this outage early in the morning to minimize the impact this outage may have. We ask that WPI community members plan their work accordingly.

We apologize for any inconvenience this outage may cause and thank the WPI community for its cooperation as we work to maintain the health of the systems and services we provide.

Details
A major upgrade of myWPI and installation of add-on software that integrates with myWPI will address known issues and will offer additional features to myWPI users. No action is required by users. Details on new features available as a result of the upgrade will be forthcoming in July.

Thank you for your patience and cooperation as we work to improve the systems we support.


Frequently Asked Questions
Here are some answers to questions users may have about the upgrade:

What about E-term grades?

This upgrade has been scheduled to occur after the 10 week E-term course grades are due to the Registrar (5 & 7 Week Courses are due on July 11, 2007 at 5pm and 10 Week Courses are due on July 31, 2007 at 5pm). Students may check their final course grades online from the Student Web Information System at http://bannerweb.wpi.edu. Course sites remain available for 21 days after the end of a term, so students will still be able to access their E-term sites following the upgrade to review grades on individual assignments. If you need a course site to remain available for longer than 21 days after the end of E-term, send a request to myhelp@wpi.edu.

I need a course/organization/project-group site. What should I do?

Course or Organization site requests submitted using the forms found at http://www.wpi.edu/+Collaboratory/HowTo/MyWPI/forms.html will still be processed before and after the upgrade, usually within two business days. However, during the downtime, we will not be able to process any site requests. Any submissions during this time will be queued until after the upgrade is complete.

What will happen if I am working on a course or organization site prior to the upgrade? Will I lose my content?

No content will be lost in any myWPI sites. You will simply lose access to your site during the upgrade. Following the upgrade your myWPI site will appear exactly as it did before, except for some minor changes to the appearance of the discussion board tool (discussions will not be lost).

Following the upgrade, will I still be able to copy content from prior courses like I could before?

Yes, prior course content will still be available for copying into current and future course sites.

What resources will be available for learning about the new features that will be available?

Prior to the upgrade, an announcement with details about the new features will be sent via e-mail. That announcement will include a link to a webpage showing the new features. Also, the myWPI Help and Support Site (http://www.wpi.edu/+Collaboratory/HowTo/MyWPI/) is being updated to reflect the changes in the upgrade. Additionally, training sessions will be offered near the beginning of A-term and the myHelp team will be happy to provide one-on-one assistance if you contact them at myhelp@wpi.edu.

Details
The squirrelmail system will not be available while we upgrade the operating system on the server that hosts squirrelmail.

We will also be upgrading the squirrelmail application to the latest version. The new version of squirrelmail will have more features such as WPI.EDU LDAP searching and Address books.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
On May 9th, 2007 starting at 6:00 am, the Computer Science (CS) Oracle database server will be taken offline for about an hour. The oracle database will be patched with the latest critical updates released in April 2007.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
On May 8th, 2007 starting at 6:00 am, the Maple license server will be shutdown while maple software is being upgraded. There will be no client access to the Maple license server.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.

Details
*Updated

On May 8th, 2007 starting at 6:00 am, the Matlab license server will be shutdown while matlab software is being upgraded to version 2007a. There will be no client access to the Matlab license server.

Thank you for your understanding while we work to improve the services that we provide.