Network & Infrastructure Services Updates
Information Technology (IT) is constantly working to improve and secure the systems and services it runs. These changes take many shapes, including security updates, upgrades to functionality, and other modifications. These changes are worked on in testing systems and then deployed into production on a regular schedule. Under the circumstances of a campus closure event, IT will change its strategy to allow work to continue and progress to be made, without any changes actually being pushed into production. This may allow progress on system development to continue without introducing unnecessary risk (e.g. system outages, downtime, etc) into an already tense environment where a large number of employees are working from home.
IT continually works with campus leadership to identify those systems and services most crucial to maintaining the University's academic mission and during a campus closure event, our resources will be spent "keeping the lights on" for those systems.
If you have any questions, comments, or concerns, please don't hesitate to open an IT request by visiting Service Hub at servicehub.uni.edu and using the Get IT Help request form.
Update: Pilot program has ended and Citrix is now widely available to students at UNI. See "Getting Started with Citrix" for more information.
Information Technology (IT) is seeking fifty UNI students who are interested in piloting a new virtual desktop service on campus. The service, powered by Citrix remote access technology, will allow students to run applications on their personally-owned devices like the Adobe Creative Cloud and others that are typically only available in on-campus computer labs. These applications would be accessible from on or off campus.
The pilot program will run over the course of the Spring 2020 academic term. IT will work closely with each student volunteer to ensure they are able to connect to and use the new virtual desktop service. Student volunteers are free to use the applications over the course of the pilot program for their academic needs while providing valuable feedback on the virtual desktops to help IT ensure the service is useful, robust, and ready for the rest of campus.
If you are a currently enrolled student at UNI and interested in participating, please fill out the following form to enroll in the pilot program.
Due to Microsoft license changes, faculty, staff, students, and Emeritus no longer affiliated with UNI will no longer be able to use the Office 365 services through UNI including using Microsoft Office on personal devices with their UNI account. On December 3rd, 2019 these accounts will be deactivated and access to Microsoft products (like Microsoft Office) and other Microsoft services through UNI will end.
Anyone impacted by this change should complete moving documents they want to retain from their UNI OneDrive or SharePoint account before end of day on December 2nd, 2019 by following these instructions:
Downloading Content from OneDrive and SharePoint
This change will only impact Microsoft services through UNI for anyone no longer affiliated with the university.
On Sunday, August 4, 2019 from 7 a.m. to 9 a.m., UNI phone handsets will be upgraded. This upgrade affects only network connected Voice over IP phones. The duration of the upgrade for each phone is about 10 minutes. Computers will also be disconnected from the network for a few minutes during maintenance. After the phone upgrades are complete we will upgrade firmware on campus switches. This will result in network disconnections and IP phone reboot.
For call centers the state of busyout or auxworks button may change to accepting calls. Volume on IP phones will be reset to default loudness.
No service disruption is expected for public safety dispatch or other analog and digital phones, including blue emergency and elevator phones.
Outage Date & Times: Friday, August 10th at 6:00 p.m. through Saturday, August 11th at 6:30 a.m.
The UPS in the Curris Business Building data center will be replaced on August 10th & 11th. This replacement requires a full data center power outage and many major systems on campus will be unavailable. In an effort to minimize the impact on the campus community, the power outage will occur Friday evening August 10th after 6:00 p.m. through early Saturday morning. All systems are expected to be back online by 6:30 a.m. Saturday, August 11th. Internet access to/from campus and access to Google Email will be available during the outage.
The following systems will remain active during the outage:
- Centralized Authentication for off campus hosted systems
- Internet Access to/from campus
- Wireless Access on campus
- Campus Web Cluster (www.uni.edu) and subsites
- Google G Suite (email, docs, etc). ** Users will need to go directly to www.gmail.com or mail.google.com to login. Any link that points to www.uni.edu/email will not be functional during this outage.
- eLearning (Blackboard)
- Active Directory Authentication & DNS
- Voice calls & Voice mail
- UNI Bookstore servers (to serve the State Fair)
- Electronic Door Access Systems
- Public Safety related systems
- Service Hub
Services that will be UNAVAILABLE
- My Universe Portal
- Peoplesoft Campus Solutions
- Student Center
- Advisor Center
- Faculty Center
- Online Application for Admission
- Online Course Lookup
- eBusiness Forms and Self-Service
- Self-Service Java Applications
- Online Directory
- Document Imaging - All OnBase Clients (Web/Unity)
- FAMIS
- Data Warehouse - OBI Applications - Analytics
- ProTrav
Planned Timeline
- 6:00 p.m. to 7:00 p.m. Systems and Services in CBB are shut down
- 7:00 p.m. to 7:15 p.m. Power cut to CBB Data center
- 7:15 p.m. to 11:00 p.m. New UPS installation, system checks, and startup
- 11:00 p.m. to 1:00 a.m. Power back on, bring systems and services back online
Pages
- ITTC 36
- (319) 273-5555
