Technology@Wooster

The Colleague (Datatel) system will be unavailable between the hours of 6:00 p.m. and midnight on Friday, April 18.  During this period important system maintenance will be performed and data will be transferred from the legacy system into Colleague.  ScotWeb will also be unavailable.  We regret any inconvenience this may cause.  Please contact Marlene Brown at x2304 with any questions you may have.

The Office of Information Technology will be upgrading and performing maintenance on a variety of systems over spring break.  In some cases, this will result in brief service interruptions. These activities and their anticipated consequences are summarized below.

• Monday, March 10
  Between 6:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. firewall components will be upgraded. During this period, Colleague, ScotWeb and the FRx system will be inaccessible. The Pharos servers will also be inaccessible and Pharos printing services will not be available.
• Tuesday, March 11
  Between 4:00 a.m. and 8:00 a.m. internet router software will be upgraded. During this period, internet access will be unavailable.
  Between 5:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. various servers will be upgraded. Brief email service interruptions are possible. Email system performance may be slower than normal.
• Wednesday, March 12
  Between 5:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. various servers will be upgraded. Brief email service interruptions are possible. Email system performance may be slower than normal. Brief interruptions in the availability of Novell spaces are possible.
• Thursday, March 13
  Between 5:30 p.m. and 10:00 p.m. various servers will be upgraded. Brief email service interruptions are possible. Email system performance may be slower than normal.

IT will work very hard to minimize the impact of these necessary activities upon the availability of services.

At approximately 8:15 p.m. on Tuesday, January 29, the campus lost power due to a falling tree branch. Battery units provide power to our servers under these circumstances, but they can do so only for a short period of time. (Less than two hours.) The purpose of these battery units is to provide the Networks, Telecommunications and Systems (NTS) group the opportunity to shutdown our servers in an orderly way. Should the servers lose power during normal operation they can be damaged and/or data can be lost. NTS arrived on campus shortly after the power failure and were able to shutdown the great majority of servers before the battery units were drained. Power was restored to campus shortly after 11:00 p.m. At that point NTS began to restart services. With the exception of the Datatel system, all critical services were operational by 3:15 a.m. Datatel was available before the beginning of the next business day.

At about 8:30 on the morning of Wednesday, the 30th, NTS staff began working with our support vendor to research anomalies with the storage area network (SAN) that appeared following the power outage. The SAN provides data storage for a significant number of our critical servers. The SAN became unstable while running the routine maintenance and diagnostic routines the vendor recommended. It became necessary to shutdown the SAN shortly after noon. This interrupted those services that rely upon the SAN to house data. These include the Datatel system. The problems with the SAN were corrected at approximately 5:30 p.m. and all services had returned to normal operation two hours later.

We regret the inconveniences that these outages created for the campus community and appreciate your support and understanding. IT is very grateful to NTS members Vince Di Scipio, Roger Dills and John McCreight would worked into the wee hours of Tuesday morning and throughout the following day to restore services.

Colleague and ScotWeb will be unavailable between noon and midnight on Saturday, January 19.  During this period IT will be working to copy data from the legacy administrative software system used by the Development Office to Colleague. This process is a critical part of the implementation of Colleague Advancement—the Datatel module dedicated to the Development and Alumni Affairs Offices.  In addition, IT will be transferring applicant data from the Admissions recruiting system into Colleague.  We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Questions can be directed to Marlene Brown at x2304.

Colleague will be unavailable between 9:00 a.m. on Wednesday, January 9 and and 6:00 a.m. on Thursday, January 10. (ScotWeb will also be unavailable.) During this period IT will be working to copy data from the legacy administrative software system to Colleague. This process is a critical part of the implementation of Colleague Advancement- -the Datatel module dedicated to the Development and Alumni Affairs Offices. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Questions can be directed to Marlene Brown at x2304.

Colleague will be unavailable between 1:00 p.m. on Saturday, November 24 and 10:00 p.m. on Sunday, November 25. (ScotWeb will also be unavailable.) During this period IT will be working to copy data from the legacy administrative software system to Colleague. This process is a critical part of the implementation of Colleague Advancement- -the Datatel module dedicated to the Development and Alumni Affairs Offices. We apologize for any inconvenience this may cause. Questions can be directed to Tabby Conwell at x2304.

Each of the learning spaces in Kauke Hall includes a scaler as part of the multimedia equipment. Kauke 037, 141 and 243 have experienced persistent problems with their scalers. Faculty members teaching in these rooms have reported problems with the projection of video from the classroom computer and the DVD/VCR combo unit. At times no images from these devices could be projected and the input source could not be changed via the Pixie Pro control unit. These issues stemmed from the problems with the scalers. Booting the scaler, which required the intervention of an IT technician, typically restored normal operation.

The scaler manufacturer has now acknowledged that the issues we have experienced are associated with a known manufacturing defect. The problems occur when the scaler’s main control unit is not properly seated in its socket. The manufacturer will repair these units under warranty.

As previously reported, the scaler in Kauke 037 has already been replaced by a unit from a different manufacturer. The original unit has been shipped back to the manufacturer for repair. Its return is expected within the next few days. When it arrives, it will be installed in Kauke 141. The scaler in Kauke 243 will also be replaced witin the next few days.

We very much regret the difficulties associated with the defective scalers.

In an effort to increase service to member institutions OarNET, the College’s internet service provider, will be performing maintenance 11/21/2007 between 12:00 a.m. and 6:00 a.m. Connectivity issues are expected when connecting to sites on Internet2. Internet and IntraOhio connections are not expected to be interrupted.

We regret any inconvenience this important service may cause.

Faculty members teaching in Kauke 037 reported problems with the projection of video from the classroom computer and the DVD/VCR combo unit. At times no images from these devices could be projected and the input source could not be changed via the Pixie Pro control unit. After firmware updates to the multimedia equipment and reprogramming of the control unit failed to resolve these issues, the problems were traced to the audio/video scaler. That unit has now been replaced with a scaler from a different manufacturer. IT will take careful note of the performance of the new unit.

In conjunction with the replacement of the scaler, IT has installed a new equipment rack inside the media cabinet in Kauke 037. The rack provides for better organization of the multimedia equipment and cabling. The rack slides out from the media cabinet and can be rotated to provide easier access for technicians servicing the equipment.

Colleague (Datatel) will be unavailable between the hours of 4:30 p.m. and 8:00 p.m. on Friday, October 19.  The Business Office will be working during this period to close the books for the 2006-2007 fiscal year.  They must have exclusive use of the system during this procedure. ScotWeb will also be unavailable during this period.

Questions should be directed to Marlene Brown at extension 2304 or via email at mbrown@wooster.edu