This year, as always, IT Services will be performing several upgrades and conducting routine maintenance on various systems to ensure they are ready for the return of the students in January.

The last several weeks of the calendar year traditionally represent a time when demands on systems are lower, reducing the risk that students, faculty, or staff will be inconvenienced by the disruptions that this work may cause.

Please bookmark MiamiOH.edu/ITStatus or follow us on Twitter (@MiamiUIT) for real-time notifications of any disruptions that may occur during these maintenance windows. Also: Please note that this list is not exhaustive and may change, so check back here regularly for updates as the winter term progresses.

If you have any questions about any of this work, please contact IT Help at 513-529-7900 or MiamiOH.edu/ITChat. To view the full calendar of planned IT activities and the current status of major systems and services, please visit our dashboard at MiamiOH.edu/ITStatus.

Here are some of the activities that we will be doing during this time:

Building Network Maintenance Scheduled for Dec. 14-22

IT Services will be performing regular network maintenance throughout the remainder of December 2021. We expect a minor disruption of between 10-15 minutes to our network service during each maintenance window. Each campus building will be affected on one scheduled day. Please visit Building Network Maintenance Scheduled for Dec. 14-22 to see the complete schedule.

Maintenance windows are between 3:00 - 6:00 am on each day. Technicians will be on hand in the event there is a sustained disruption.

Campus internal network and internet routers to be rebooted for software updates

Please read carefully. Starting Dec. 21, n order to install critical software updates, IT Services will be performing maintenance on internet routers which feed the Oxford, Hamilton, and Middletown campuses. This means that internet services will not be available for up to five minutes during the maintenance windows, depending on which campus router is being rebooted.

Please see the IT News item for the complete schedule.

VMware Cluster work throughout December and January

Starting Dec. 14 at 11 pm, IT Services will begin work to rebuild our production VMware Cluster (Cluster P) hosts. This rebuild will take place over the next several weeks, until Jan. 19.

Administrators will rebuild one host each day, taking into account other change schedules to avoid possible conflict. This work will begin at 11 pm and finish at 9 pm the next day.

No interruptions are expected during this process. However, there might be some performance issues for some services between 3 am and 7 am each day of the rebuild. We will be monitoring the status of our Production cluster as we proceed with this rebuild process.

ELK upgrade scheduled for Wednesday, December 15

ELK will be upgraded to version 7.16 on Wednesday, Dec. 15, starting at 7:30 am. This is a rolling upgrade, so it will take place throughout the day, and will be completed by 4:30 pm.

There will be no downtime during this upgrade, but if you get an error while using ELK during the day, simply reload the page. You should not notice any changes in the tool with this upgrade.

Perimeter Firewall Equipment Replacement Rescheduled for January 6

On Thursday, Jan. 6 from 5 to 7 am, IT Services will be installing new perimeter firewall hardware. During this time access to the internet will be unavailable, and existing connections to and from the internet will be disconnected. IT Services technicians will be available to limit the disruptions as much as possible while also collecting data, and troubleshooting any issues that may arise. VPN service will not be affected, and locally sourced Miami University assets will still be accessible.

Listserv Upgrade

On Jan. 10, IT Services will be performing an upgrade to the LISTSERV service. During the upgrade, the LISTSERV application (where users can look up lists and see archived messages sent previously) will not be available.

This will be a substantial upgrade, and users of the LISTSERV interface will notice several differences. Please stay tuned for more information about this upgrade as the team knows more.

NetApp storage upgrade

IT Services will be performing planned maintenance on our enterprise storage system. The NetApp storage device in the Hoyt Hall data center will be upgraded on Monday, Jan. 3 from 8 to 10 pm.

No disruptions are expected. However, some University applications may experience brief outages during the maintenance window, and some applications may need to be restarted after the work is complete. Services that might be impacted include: Banner, Windows File Servers, and Oracle databases. Technicians will be on hand to resolve any issues, and we will provide updates as necessary during the work.

If you have any issues logging in to Miami resources using your UniqueID and password on Monday, please check MiamiOH.edu/ITStatus for more information and a full report of any ongoing problems.

Friends at the Table: CS Gold Upgrade (Miami ID Card)

Miami's ID Card system will undergo a full version upgrade beginning at 7 am on Tuesday, Jan. 4, 2022 through Wednesday, Jan. 5, 2022. The duration of the upgrade is significant and will take up to 35 hours. Outages are expected to occur intermittently throughout this timeframe; however, primary services will continue to operate in Offline mode. As a precautionary method, please tap your physical ID card at electronic doors most frequented that you will need to enter on Jan. 4 and 5.

Below is a detailed list of services that will operate in Offline mode and those that will not operate during the intermittent outages:

Services and Devices which will work in Offline mode

Services and systems that will not work in Offline mode

Important Information Regarding Miami Wireless Updates

The Secure Sockets Layer (SSL) certificate Miami uses for its wireless network will be updated between 6:00 - 7:00 am on Wednesday, January 12, 2022. SSL certificates are used to establish an encrypted connection between a browser or user's computer and a server or website. The SSL connection protects sensitive data from being intercepted from non-authorized parties.

Following the update, users may be asked to re-authenticate to MU-WIRELESS and eduroam on their various devices, and some users will also have to “forget” the networks and re-add them.