Research Computing Resources

A critical server within the Research Computing cluster failed due to load and resulted in a full reboot being required. We are currently working on bringing services back online.

Posted in Research Computing

OIT Systems Maintenance, Thurs. November 18 from 12:01AM to 7:00AM

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, 11/18/2021 from 12:01 AM to 7:00 AM during OIT maintenance window. In addition, the following systems will be specifically impacted:

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Add licensing support for new Office version
Description of change: OIT will be adding licensing support for Office 2021​
Downtime window start 11/18/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 11/18/2021 6:05 AM
Affected services: ​Office/Windows activation
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected​

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BHRIC server maintenance
Description of change: ​Research Computing will be performing maintenance of BHRIC servers
Downtime window start 11/18/2021 12:00 AM
Downtime window end 11/18/2021 4:00 PM
Affected services: BHRIC Hyper-V , ​research-vmm, Health Server (vm’s)
Expected End-user impact: ​During this time services like research-vmm for department IT admins may not be available.

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Posted in Research Computing, Systems

[Resolved] University Forms Offline

[8:00 am] The University form (Frevvo) system has been returned to service. We are working with the vendor to determine why the error occurred and prevent it from hapenning again.
[7:45 am] The University form (Frevvo) system is offline due to a configuration issue. We are working with the vendor to resolve the problem.

Posted in Banner and Admin Systems, Educational Technologies, Instructional Technologies, Research Computing, Systems, Workday

BHRIC Virtual Desktops

[01:00 10/02/2021] The issue has been resolved. The vendor has corrected the issue with their software and everything is working as expected. Administrators will need to contact OIT for instructions to connect to the administrative interface as a configuration setting was changed during the repair.
[21:00 10/01/2021] Certain Virtual Desktops on the BHRIC may not be accessible due to a failure of a backend service. We are working with the vendor to resolve the issue and will update this post regularly. If you experience an issue accessing your virtual desktop please report the problem to your IT support team. They will be able to work with OIT to bring the virtual desktop online.

Posted in Research Computing, Systems

OIT Systems Maintenance, Thurs. Sept 23 from 3:00AM to 7:00AM

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, 09/23/2021 from 3:00 AM to 7:00 AM during OIT maintenance window. In addition, the following systems will be specifically impacted:

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Pay-for-print upgrade
Description of change: OIT will upgrade the Pay-for-Print server (Papercut) to the newest version.
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 4:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: Pay-for-print
​Expected End-user impact: Pay-for-print services will be unavailable during the maintenance window.

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Storage configuration modification
Description of change: OIT will enable a configuration option for the storage supporting the virtualization environment.
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 6:05 AM
Affected services: N/A
​Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected​.

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Application modification
Description of change: OIT will enable Automatic Upgrades of Malwarebytes cloud clients.
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 6:15 AM
Affected services: ​Malwarebytes cloud clients, though the clients will not notice anything.
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected​.

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Canvas Tool Updates
Description of change: OIT will update the following Canvas tools to fix bugs and add new features:
​User Management, Course Management, Observer Management
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 5:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 6:00 AM
Affected services: UserManagement, ObserverManagement, and CourseManagement​
Expected End-user impact: The tools mentioned above will be momentarily unavailable when updates are being performed.

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Spam Filter Configuration Change
Description of change: OIT will be changing a setting related to email disclaimers on our spam filters.​
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 4:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 4:00 AM
Affected services: ​Inbound FAU email
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected​.

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Server Upgrade
Description of change: ​OIT will be applying updates to one of its mail servers.
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 3:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 6:00 AM
Affected services: ​On-Premises Exchange
Expected End-user impact: ​On-Premises Exchange is primarily used for 365 email management by the Help Desk. During this time mailboxes and distribution groups will not be able to be created/changed/deleted.

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Virtualization Upgrade
Description of change: Research Computing will upgrade the research computing private cloud to the latest version.
Downtime window start 9/23/2021 3:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/23/2021 6:00 AM
Affected services: HPC Cluster, Storage, Senior Design Projects
Expected End-user impact: No users should not be affected by this upgrade; however, ​there is a chance the machines could fail.

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Posted in Canvas / LMS, Educational Technologies, Email, Research Computing, Systems

[Resolved] Forms Server Offline

09/18/2021 10:00 PM: The University forms server (Frevvo) has been restored to service. Form developers, please check your emails for more details.

09/18/2021 08:20 PM: The University forms server (Frevvo) has experienced an error and is currently offline. We have identified the problem and are performing emergency maintenance to resolve the issue. We will update this when the problem is resolved.

This has impacted the University Admissions applications for Undergraduate Admissions, College of Business Graduate Programs Admissions Application, Non-Degree Admissions Application, and numerous other forms and workflows.

Posted in Banner and Admin Systems, Educational Technologies, Instructional Technologies, Lecture Capture, Network and Telecom, Research Computing, Systems, Video Conferencing

OIT Systems Maintenance, Thurs. from 2:00AM to 7:00AM

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, 09/16/2021 from 2:00 AM to 7:00 AM during OIT maintenance window. In addition, the following systems will be specifically impacted:

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Banner Maintenance
Description of change: Banner will be under maintenance and will be unavailable from 2:00am to 7:00am on Thursday 16th September.
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 2:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: ​BANNER 8X/XE
Expected End-user impact: The Banner system will be brought down during the actual installation of the new release code.

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Server Upgrade
Description of change: OIT will be upgrading the operating system of the List server (Sympa).​
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 5:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: ​Sympa mailing list
Expected End-user impact: No email will be going out from the mailing lists until the OS upgrade has been completed.​

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Active Directory Maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be removing groups from Active Directory that were previously used to assign Microsoft 356 licenses. These groups were replaced by a new process and have not been synchronized since October 2020.
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 6:30 AM
Affected services: Active Directory​
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

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Microsoft 365 License Maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be performing maintenance to the Microsoft 365 license assignment process.​
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 5:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Affected services: No services impacted.​
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

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Single Sign-on Maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be performing maintenance to the Single-Sign-On (SSO) web services to disable certain ciphers and TLS versions in the SSL policy.
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: Single-Sign On (SSO)​
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

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User Manager Maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be performing maintenance on our User Manager application. ​These changes are needed to retire a server.
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: User Manager/ OIM​
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

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Server Maintenance
Description of change: OIT is making a change to enhance the security of the main FAU website
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 6:30 AM
Affected services: FAU website
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

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Server Upgrade
Description of change: OIT will be performing upgrades to its authentication servers.​
Downtime window start 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/16/2021 6:00 AM
Affected services: Active Directory (ad.fau.edu)
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

Posted in Banner and Admin Systems, Educational Technologies, Email, Research Computing, Systems

OIT Systems Maintenance, Thurs. Sept 9 from 3:00AM to 7:00AM

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, 09/09/2021 from 3:00 AM to 7:00 AM during OIT maintenance window. In addition, the following systems will be specifically impacted:

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Server Upgrade (Eprint)
Description of change: The electronic document storage system for Administrative Services known as Eprint is being upgraded and will be unavailable during the marked downtime.
Downtime window start 9/9/2021 8:00 AM
Downtime window end 9/10/2021 5:00 PM
Affected services: eprint​
Expected End-user impact: ​eprint will be unavailable during this period.

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REDCap updates
Description of change: OIT will be installing REDCap​ patches
Downtime window start 9/9/2021 12:05 AM
Downtime window end 9/9/2021 2:00 AM
Affected services: REDCap​
Expected End-user impact: ​Users will not be able to use REDCap during this time. Also since the time zone will be changing , scheduled tasks may need to be updated by the users depending on how they implemented the task.

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Posted in Banner and Admin Systems, Research Computing, Systems

Forms.fau.edu is offline

[7:30 pm] The Form service is online! All forms should be working as expected.
[6:10 pm] The Form service is online! Many forms will show a yellow bar on the top and bottom indicating it is not a production form. Please report these to https://helpDesk.fau.edu, we are currently updating them as quickly as possible.
[4:50 pm] The Form service is still offline but we have corrected most issues and the form developers are testing to make sure everything is working. More information will follow when we have verified the fix was applied correctly.
[1:30 pm] The Form service is still offline but we are making progress on correcting the issue. More information will follow when we have tested the fix.
[9:00 am] The Form server has been taken offline as a precaution. We are making progress with the vendor and will know more soon.
[8:24 am] The Form server is back online but historic submissions are not accessible. A support ticket has been open with the vendor and more information will follow.
* We did confirm that the submissions appear to be in the System but not visible.
[7:50 am] The University Form Server forms.fau.edu is currently offline due to a failure of the service. We will update this post regularly with updated information.

Posted in Banner and Admin Systems, Canvas / LMS, Educational Technologies, Email, Instructional Technologies, Lecture Capture, Network and Telecom, Research Computing, Systems, Workday

OIT Systems Maintenance, Thurs. August 5 from 3:00AM to 7:00AM

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, 08/05/2021 from 3:00 AM to 7:00 AM during OIT maintenance window. In addition, the following systems will be specifically impacted:

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Server Maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be updating the website certificates for various public webservers as they are about to expire.
Downtime window start 8/5/2021 3:00 AM
Downtime window end 8/5/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: ​Any public website using OIT’s SSL certificate. Examples are: www.fau.edu, helpdesk.fau.edu, directory.fau.edu, banner self service, network registration
Expected End-user impact: During this time, there might be a brief interruption as webservers are reloaded.

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Banner Maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be upgrading the Touchnet Banner​Connect client from version 7.6.0.0.2 to 7.10.0.2.1 in production.
Downtime window start: 8/5/2021 6:00 AM
Downtime window end: 8/5/2021 7:00 AM
Affected services: Touchnet BannerConnect – Payments made through Banner​
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected

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Server Upgrade
Description of change: OIT will be upgrading one of its infrastructure servers related to DNS. OIT requests that no DNS changes be made after end of day on 8/4.
Downtime window start 8/5/2021 3:00 AM
Downtime window end 8/5/2021 5:00 AM
Affected services: ​DNS
Expected End-user impact: No end-user impact is expected.

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BHRIC VDI maintenance
Description of change: OIT will be upgrading the BHRIC VDI environment
Downtime window start 8/5/2021 12:05 AM
Downtime window end 8/5/2021 2:00 AM
Affected services: vhealth, vhealthon
Expected End-user impact: During this time, users will not be able to use the BHRIC VDI

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Posted in Banner and Admin Systems, Research Computing, Systems