ITS Current Service Notices

Service Outage: Updates to ITS Corporate System Applications

Thu, 24 May 2012 07:53:00 +1200

Audience: People accessing ITS Corporate System Applications

Time Frame: 5:00pm - 6:00pm Wednesday 23rd May 2012

Services Affected:

Exam Admin
Managed Enrolment

Reason for Outage: Updates to the ITS Corporate System Applications

We apologise for any inconvenience caused by this service interruption. If you have any questions, please contact the ITS Service Desk

ITS Service Desk Reference: HD0436800

Vodafone Network Maintenance: 3G Voice & Data

Wed, 23 May 2012 17:24:00 +1200

Time Frame: 1:00-1:30am, Tuesday 29 May 2012

Due to a software upgrade on the Vodafone network, there may be a loss of 3G Voice & Data for all of the South Island for 30 minutes during the above time frame.

Scheduled Outage: Network Maintenance at 6:00 pm, Monday 21 May

Tue, 22 May 2012 15:42:00 +1200

Audience: This will affect all staff and students

Timeframe: 6:00 pm – 6:30pm, Monday 21 May

Description:
ITS advises that network maintenance will be performed at 6:00 pm, Monday 21 May.
There will be a series of network outages lasting up to 10 seconds each.
ITS expects that the maintenance will be completed by 6:30 pm.

The outages will affect all internet and KAREN traffic both incoming and outgoing. Local Campus LAN traffic will not be affected.

We apologise for the inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions, please contact the ITS Service Desk.

ITS Service Desk Reference: HD0436558

Notice Date: 21 May 2012

Unscheduled Network Outages

Fri, 18 May 2012 16:39:00 +1200

Update and Incident Report: Network and Internet Connectivity Issues - Thursday and Friday 17&18 May

Thursday 17 May (10:15-11:45am)
During this time, access to services on the University network and Internet was timing out or response was very slow.

This was traced to a problem with critical equipment involved in managing the University’s network traffic. We are working with the service vendor to identify the underlying cause.

Friday 18 May (6:30am – 12:45pm*)
During this time, access to services on the University network (all campuses) and Internet was unavailable or (from mid-morning onwards) intermittent.

The issue was traced to a fault with a core component of the University’s network infrastructure (at this stage unrelated to Thursday’s incident). Access to the network and services was restored following the replacement of the faulty component and the restart of systems (approximately 12:45pm).

We are working with our network partner to further analyse the fault and identify any subsequent work that may be required.

*Note:
• access to the StaffMail email service via Microsoft Outlook was an issue for some people after this time, but this should now be resolved.
• restoration of access to test and development systems is expected to be completed by 5pm today.
• HR/Payroll Back Office reports are now running normally.

Please contact the ITS Service Desk if you are continuing to experience any problems accessing services.

Our apologies for the inconvenience caused by these incidents.

Update 2:20pm - Staff may experience slowness with email services. Please use the Outlook Web Access (http://www.otago.ac.nz/staffmail) if unable to use your email program. This will be resolved once full services are restored.

Update 11:40am - As part of restoring full network services, a restart of core network equipment is required at 12noon today (Friday 18 May).

This will mean all network services will be unavailable for a 15 minute period from 12noon.

Time Frame: 6:30am and ongoing, Friday 18 May

Due to a hardware fault in our core network infrastructure, several University services are unavailable.

ITS technical staff are currently working to resolve the situation. There will be a gradual restoration of services during this time; however, we anticipate that full services will be available within 7-8 hours. Unfortunately we cannot identify when each service will be restored.

We apologise for the inconvenience.

Scheduled: Server Decommission - elrohir.otago.ac.nz - July 2012

Wed, 9 May 2012 10:16:00 +1200

Server Decommission: elrohir.otago.ac.nz will be soon decommissioned

Time Frame: In July 2012 once all services have been moved to other servers and alternative solutions found.

NB: Due to the instability of this server at present, users will experience an outage approximately once a week, while the server reboots. These intermittent problems will interrupt the following:

Services Affected:

SMS texting gateway
Nagios system monitoring
Ldap authentication for legacy linux servers

The migration process is already underway, and if you are a consumer of services provided by elrohir, you will be contacted in due course to discuss the migration process to a more stable system.

We apologize for any inconvenience caused.

ITS Service Desk Reference: HD0435346

Alert: Staff Webmail attachment.ashx Issue

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 17:02:00 +1200

When accessing Staff Webmail using Firefox or Chrome browsers, attachments may currently download as attachment.ashx rather than the correct filename and extension.

This is a worldwide issue affecting all Firefox and Chrome users accessing Outlook Web App (OWA) on Exchange Server.

Currently the only fix is to use Internet Explorer.

An alternative workaround, if you know the original file type of the attachment, is to download the file as attachment.ashx then either:
a) rename the file, including the extension e.g. rename attachment.ashx to filename.pdf, or
b) Open the attachment.ashx file directly and select the program to open it with (you may need to browse your software to find the appropriate program).

Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please contact the ITS HelpDesk.

Phishing email Warning

Mon, 30 Apr 2012 10:40:00 +1200

"Students and staff may have recently received an email claiming that "Due to anonymous registration we are shutting down some unused account", and "kindly click on the link to upgrade and reconfirm your email account".

The link goes to a Google Documents form with the title "Zimbra Collaboration Suite".

This is a phishing email. Do not respond to this scam, and ignore or delete the email.

If you have already entered your username and password, please contact the Service Desk immediately.

ITS Service Desk Reference: HD0433607

Alert: Blackboard Java security warning/message

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 15:59:00 +1200

The Java security certificate used in Blackboard's Java applets (Chat, Equation Editor, Text Editor, and other areas) have expired. We are working with Blackboard to update these certifications, but it will require an outage to Blackboard in the future.
You may be prompted with security warnings when you try to load some areas of Blackboard - you will see a pop-up box stating 'The application's digital signature cannon be verified. Do you want to run the application?'. In this instance it is ok to 'Run' the content – please check with the ITS ServiceDesk if you receive similar security warnings with other systems.

ITS Service Desk Reference: HD0434034

Alert: Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) Now Supported

Thu, 26 Apr 2012 14:49:00 +1200

Update 26 April 2012

Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) is now supported for use with ITS delivered services.

Update 11 December 2011

There has been no change to the status of this notice.

Update 21 July 2011

Mac OS 10.7 (Lion) is not yet a tested or supported operating system for use with ITS delivered services. Using Mac OS 10.7 to connect and/or use these services may result in adverse effects to that service.

ITS services known to have potential issues include the Staff and Student Managed Desktop and Enterprise (Celerra) File Serving. We are working with vendors to address these issues but for now please refrain from using Mac OS 10.7 with these services.

Our apologies for any inconvenience this may cause. If you have any questions or concerns about this, please contact the ITS HelpDesk.