[Resolved] Blackboard Grade Center Error

Earlier today some users may have experienced errors accessing the Blackboard grade center and possibly other areas. We have resolved these problems and contacted the vendor for support to prevent the issue in the future.

If you experience any errors with Blackboard please submit a ticket at http://helpdesk.fau.edu/.

Posted in Educational Technologies

OIT Systems Maintenance, Thurs. January 31, from 3:00 to 7:00 AM

Office of Information Technology will be performing routine systems maintenance which includes but is not limited to rebooting Windows servers as deemed necessary, installing critical patches and other health checks on Thursday, 01/31/2012 from 3:00 AM to 7:00 AM during OIT maintenance window. In addition, the following systems will be specifically impacted:

When: 3:00 – 6:00 AM
Affected services: Exchange email
Affected systems: Exchange
Description of maintenance: In an attempt to alleviate issues affecting Exchange and poor client connectivity and response times with some users, several changes are being made to the Exchange servers.
User impact: End-users may experience connectivity issues with Exchange (including Outlook, OWA, and ActiveSync) during the window.

When: 5:00 – 5:30 AM
Affected Services: Blackboard
Affected Systems: piwik1.fau.edu, Blackboard
Description of Maintenance: Adjust MySQL performance parameters to improve performance.
User Impact: Internet Explorer users will experience a performance degradation when using Blackboard while the database server is restarted.

When: 5:00 – 6:00 AM
Affected Services: lists.fau.edu
Affected Systems: lists.fau.edu (Sympa)
Description of Maintenance: Increase memory allocated to the Sympa virtual machine.
User Impact: The Sympa list server will be unavailable. Mail sent during this period will be delayed.

When: 3:00 – 3:30 AM
Affected services: SharePoint, Private Eye, Graduate Application and Xitracs
Affected systems: MSSQL1 and MSSQL2
Description of maintenance: We are adding additional memory to MSSQL1 and MSSQL2.
User impact: No interruption of service is expected, but it is possible that SharePoint, Private Eye, Graduate Application and Xitracs may be unavailable for a few minutes. These applications typically will gracefully tolerate the loss of database connectivity for the timespan of the cluster failover. It is however possible that users of these applications may receive an error for a brief time.

When: 3:00 AM
Affected services: Network Registration, Identity Manager (password sync), Ibiweb, Graduate Application, SharePoint, Lists, Talisma, Xitracs, VisualSVN, Blackboard, Ieaweb, Octopus (web proxy)
Affected systems: VM hosts
Description of maintenance: We are adding additional vlans to trunked ports on our VM hosts so VM guests may access newly created vlans.
User impact: There is no end-user impact expected, however if an issue arises it may cause loss of service for the services listed above.

When: 3:00 – 7:00 AM
Affected services: Financial Aid INB and SSB
Affected systems: Banner – Financial Aid
Description of maintenance: Financial Aid 8.16.0 upgrade + patches, Fin Aid Self Service 8.16.0 upgrade + patches, Financial Aid 8.16.0.1 patch, Mass Data Upload Utility 8.0.0 upgrade + five patches, Mass Data Upload Utility 8.0.0.6 patch
User impact: The user may receive a timeout or ‘Page Not Found’ message while connected to Fin Aid SSB. Financial Aid INB and Fin Aid SSB response time may be a little slower than normal.

When: 2:00 – 3:00 AM
Affected Services: IEADATA share directory
Affected Systems: ieadata.fau.edu
Description of Maintenance: The BOGSUBMISSIONS directory content will be copied to ANDISEC.
User Impact: While the data is being copied the IEADATA share BOGSUBMISSIONS will be unavailable.

Posted in Uncategorized