Recently in Portal Category

Beginning about 5:30 PM this evening the Seton Hall University data center on the South Orange campus experienced a problem with the storage area network (SAN). Multiple systems were affected. Most critically, Piratenet, the SHU community portal, was down, so users were unable to access Webmail, Blackboard, or Banner Self Service. All services were restored by 8:00 PM.

Stephen Landry, CIO

Seton Hall University
South Orange, NJ 07079
Tel.: 973-761-7386
Email: stephen.landry@shu.edu
Web: pirate.shu.edu/~landryst/

For the latest news from SHU IT, see the IT News and Announcements blog at: http://tltc.shu.edu/blogs/projects/DoIT/
For the latest news on technology in teaching and learning, see the ePirate blog at: http://tltc.shu.edu/blogs/projects/epirate/

For the latest information and advice on using SHU's IT systems and services, see the IT Tech Tips blog at: http://blogs.shu.edu/projects/tech_tips/

This weekend University IT Services upgraded the DNS and DHCP servers on the campus network. These are critical services that enable your computer to access the Internet. Following this upgrade, the University now has redundant DNS and DHCP servers in different locations around campus, ensuring that members of the University community will have uninterrupted access to the Internet in the event one server or network link fails.

If you experience problems connecting to the Internet or to campus servers this morning, please reboot your computer, as you may have obsolete information about the campus Internet connection in your computer's memory.

Steve Landry, CIO

Now that all students have been moved from Lotus Notes to MS Live@EDU, University IT Services (UITS) is focusing on expanding the pool of "early adopters" of faculty, staff, and administrators for MS Exchange.

This week, UITS successfully added MS Exchange to the list of systems that support "single sign-on" through the new PirateNet portal. The PirateNet portal is based on Banner Luminis, and provides enhanced access to the University's Banner system, as well as providing single sign-on for most commonly used campus systems.

Next week early adoptes from the Law School and Housing and Residence Life will be migrated to the new MS Exchange email system. This will provide UITS an opportunity to test the migration process and user training.

There are four ways to access MS Exchange email. Using MS Outlook is one of the most common, and allows users to download their email to their computer and work "off line." Outlook Web Access (OWA) works in MS Internet Explorer and provides roughly the same functionality as MS Outlook over the Web. OWA Light works in any Web browser and provides an interface similar to MS Hotmail. You can also access MS Exchange email from other devices and clients, including the Blackberry and iPhone, using IMAP.

As we get more early adopters converted to MS Exchange email, UITS will share a more detailed conversion schedule with the University community. Look for this later in February.

Steve Landry, CIO

As previously reported, some Lotus Notes users receive attachments from MS Live that are unreadable. Microsoft has resolved this issue. This was traced to the way MS Live encoded MIME extensions (the character sets used in email attachments), and this was adjusted for all SHU MS Live accounts.

Please report any problems related to the new MS Active Directory login process, the new PirateNet portal, or the new MS Live student email system to the Technology Help Desk.

Stephen Landry, CIO

Members of the University community have been using the new campus portal for over a week now. Here are few observations, comments, and suggestions.

By the end of this week the new PirateNet portal was getting about 10,000 logins from over 4,000 unique users each day. This is about the same level of use as the old Blackboard portal, showing that most users have successfully moved to the new system.

This is a reminder to the University community that passwords will be reset TOMORROW, JANUARY 7th, AT 7:00 AM.

Tomorrow at 7:00 AM, the University will switch to a new campus portal and a new student email system. To support this change, the University is switcing to Microsoft Active Directory for logging in to most network services. Details of this change can be found in the article: http://www.shu.edu/offices/technology/january-7-upgrade.cfm

BE ADVISED THAT IN PREPARATION FOR THE SWITCH TO THE NEW LOGIN SYSTEM, CAMPUS PORTAL, AND STUDENT EMAIL, ALL SYTEMS WILL BE UNAVAILABLE TOMORROW MORNING FROM 12:00 MIDNIGHT UNTIL 7:00 AM.

Stephen Landry, Ph.D.
Chief Information Officer
Seton Hall University

This morning members of the IT Management Team are giving a presentation on the planned move to Microsoft Exchange email at the Banner Academic Affairs Advisory Group (BAAAG).

The presentation can be downloaded here:

SHU Email Planning BAAAG 20081113 FINAL.pdf

Additional open forums for students, faculty, and administrators are being scheduled to discuss the planned email move to Microsoft Exchange, as well as other technology infrastructure changes under way.

Steve Landry, CIO

The PirateNet portal debuts today!

Visit piratenet.shu.edu, Seton Hall's new campus-wide authenticated, personalized community webspace, to test drive the new portal.

For a while PirateNet will run along side myweb.shu.edu (the Blackboard portal), giving you an opportunity to become familiar with the new portal's layout and features. Take advantage of PirateNet's debut and let us know your thoughts; send your questions or drop us a suggestion at piratenet@shu.edu.

Nancy Mustachio, Director, UITS Application Support

On Monday, October 20th, the University will achieve another milestone in the project to revamp the University's Web site, email system, and network infrastructure with the launch of PirateNet, the new campus portal.

PirateNet will provide students, faculty, and employees seamless access to a variety of technology services, including Blackboard, Banner Self Service, and the campus email system. PirateNet takes advantage of predefined channels into the University's Banner administrative system, providing easy access to important personal information. PirateNet also serves as a communication hub for campus news, announcements, and events, replacing broadcast email as the primary communication method for important campus information.

On Monday, October 20th, members of the University community will receive instructions on how to access PirateNet. For the next few months PirateNet will run in parallel with the University's current portal. The current portal will be decommissioned after the Winter Break. In the meantime, members of the University community are invited to "test drive" PirateNet and send their comments and suggestions to the PirateNet development team at: piratenet@shu.edu

This is an important step enabling the University to begin moving to the new campus email system. The current plan is to move all students to the new email system on or about January 5th, 2009, with faculty and employees to follow over the spring semester.

More information about PirateNet and the University's plans to move to Microsoft Exchange email can be found at http://www.shu.edu/offices/technology/improving-technology.cfm

Steve Landry, CIO

Summary: University IT Services will be completing a major upgrade to the data center's storage network during the scheduled maintenance windows on Sunday, September 28th, and Sunday, October 12th. Most IT systems, including email and Banner, will not be available from 12:00 Midnight through 7:00 AM on those days. Access to Blackboard (myweb.shu.edu) and the Seton Hall University Web site (www.shu.edu) will NOT be affected during this upgrade.

To the University community:

This fall, University IT Services is making many changes to the University's IT systems and services. These include going "live" with the new Banner Luminis portal, replacing the Novell network login with Microsoft's Active Directory, and moving the campus to Microsoft Exchange email. These changes are outlined in previous posts to this blog (see this post, for example).

In preparation for these changes, University IT Services is performing an upgrade to the storage area network in the University's data center. To complete these upgrades, all IT systems except Blackboard (myweb.shu.edu) and the University's main Web site (www.shu.edu) will be down during the Sunday morning (12:00 Midnight to 7:00 AM) maintenance windows on September 28th and October 12th. In particular, email and Banner will be down during those periods. Please plan your work accordingly.

As a reminder to the University community, UITS has established set times to perform system upgrades and other systems work. These set times (maintenance windows) are every Sunday morning from midnight to 7AM. Additional extended maintenance windows occur twice a year during the winter break and the week after the end of summer session. In order to minimize the impact of system work on the University community, UITS will attempt to schedule all system work during these periods. UITS will always attempt to inform the University community if scheduled maintenance will affect access, however, unless prior arrangements have been made with UITS, any IT system may be taken off line during these maintenance windows without prior notice.

Steve Landry, CIO