UNBC IT Support Blog

A very real looking scam email was sent out last night/this morning.

It appears to come from Greg Condon. Its NOT from Greg.

Please just delete this message from your Inbox.

Please be advised that on Friday May 4, 2012 from 5:00 pm to Saturday May 5, 2012 at 11:00 pm, ITS will be performing system wide maintenance. During this time window *ALL* UNBC services may be impacted, including OWA.

For a complete list of the systems affected during this upgrade please read this summary.

Please check our status update page at any time after 10:00 AM on Saturday May 5th for updates.

If you have any questions or concerns please contact Greg Condon, Chief Information Officer at gcondon@unbc.ca , x5289.

A brief electrical maintenance shutdown has been scheduled for Sunday May 6, and will affect the following buildings (only):

-          Research Lab (Building 4)

-          Teaching Lab (Building 8 )

-          Maintenance Shop

-          UNBC Childcare Centre

The outage will occur shortly after noon on Sunday May 6 and is anticipated to be complete by 2pm on the same day.

Normal power will be shut off during the installation; emergency (essential) power will be available throughout the shutdown.  As with any time we lose power from BC Hydro, there will be a short (approximately 15 seconds) period with no power as the generators start up.  The normal power outage required for the maintenance will last no more than 4 hours.  Heat and emergency lighting will be maintained through the duration of the outage.

If you have experiments or other equipment that would be adversely affected by a power outage please contact David Claus to discuss the options for minimizing any disruption.

This work has been scheduled to occur on a weekend to minimize the disruption to the campus community.  Access to the affected buildings will be limited to personnel performing the installations.

Note for those with disabilities:

Elevators in the affected buildings will not be available during the outage, but as noted above only authorized personnel will be permitted into the buildings during this time.  After the installation is complete and normal power is restored all elevators will be restored to normal operation.

Blogs.unbc.ca will be moving to a new home tomorrow at 10 a.m.  There will be a brief interruption in service while it is moved.

Due to the recent critical updates release by Microsoft for Windows 2003\2008\XP\7, ITS will be installing critical updates on all Windows Servers on Thursday, April 12, 2012 between 10pm and 4am. The downtime for each server should be minimal, but the large time window is required to get all of the servers updated.  The updates are required to keep our servers secure from exploits and to reduce future downtime.

Please note that due to the connected nature of our services this maintenance will affect ALL computer systems on campus.

We will also be patching all Windows workstations on campus. Within 48 hours of April 12, 2012 computers on campus running one of these operating systems will be installing these updates.

If you are prompted with the installation of these updates, please accept the updates.  Following the updates, you may be prompted to reboot your computer to finish the install.  As requested, when it is convenient, please save all of your work and reboot your computer.  If you are using a computer in a presentation environment please remember to boot your computer and connect it to the network at least one hour prior to your presentation to allow for patching and rebooting. This is to ensure that your presentation will not be interrupted with a prompt to reboot your workstation.

We appreciate your patience in this matter.

Due to the recent critical updates release by Microsoft for Windows 2003\2008\XP\7, ITS will be installing critical updates on all Windows Servers on Thursday, March 15, 2012 between 10pm and 4am. The downtime for each server should be minimal, but the large time window is required to get all of the servers updated.  The updates are required to keep our servers secure from exploits and to reduce future downtime.

Please note that due to the connected nature of our services this maintenance will affect ALL computer systems on campus.

We will also be patching all Windows workstations on campus. Within 48 hours of March 15, 2012 computers on campus running one of these operating systems will be installing these updates.

If you are prompted with the installation of these updates, please accept the updates.  Following the updates, you may be prompted to reboot your computer to finish the install.  As requested, when it is convenient, please save all of your work and reboot your computer.  If you are using a computer in a presentation environment please remember to boot your computer and connect it to the network at least one hour prior to your presentation to allow for patching and rebooting. This is to ensure that your presentation will not be interrupted with a prompt to reboot your workstation.

The Student Terminal Server (sts.unbc.ca) is down.  We are working on it, but have no ETA.

The UNBC wireless network will be renamed UNBC_NONSECURE this evening.

All wireless devices will be prompted to find a new network tomorrow.  It is recommended that you select UNBC_SECURE.

As part of our regularly scheduled Thursday night maintenance window, I will be performing updates to the Microsoft Exchange email servers tonight March 8, 2012 between 10:00 pm and 2:00 am.  Each update will be fairly short, but there are several stages to go through and the whole process will take several hours to complete.  During that time, email services will be interrupted and access to various parts of our email system will be unavailable.  This includes normal Outlook access as well as OWA and mobile devices.

During these interruptions, all incoming email will be queued up and will be delivered to Exchange Mailboxes once services have been restored.  That means that there will be delays in receiving email, but it will all get here eventually.

Due to the recent critical updates release by Microsoft for Windows 2003\2008\XP\7, ITS will be installing critical updates on all Windows Servers on Thursday, February 23, 2012 between 10pm and 4am. The downtime for each server should be minimal, but the large time window is required to get all of the servers updated.  The updates are required to keep our servers secure from exploits and to reduce future downtime.

Please note that due to the connected nature of our services this maintenance will affect ALL computer systems on campus.

We will also be patching all Windows workstations on campus. Within 48 hours of February 23, 2012 computers on campus running one of these operating systems will be installing these updates.

If you are prompted with the installation of these updates, please accept the updates.  Following the updates, you may be prompted to reboot your computer to finish the install.  As requested, when it is convenient, please save all of your work and reboot your computer.  If you are using a computer in a presentation environment please remember to boot your computer and connect it to the network at least one hour prior to your presentation to allow for patching and rebooting. This is to ensure that your presentation will not be interrupted with a prompt to reboot your workstation.

We appreciate your patience in this matter.