After last week, this week has been fairly calm in terms of IT issues. Which means, no troubleshooting to report. Instead, I’ll give a brief report on the status of a variety of pending items followed by what’s happening on campus. There are a variety of projects involving IT here at the center that have been in a “holding pattern” for quite some time. Here’s a reminder of what those projects are and their status.
The podium for the large conference room: We have been waiting on delivery of the podium from the westside since this past fall. Currently, the podium is just sitting there waiting to be loaded up and brought over. The plan is to load the podium on a surplus truck that is supposed to be delivered to TFREC, drive it to some halfway location, and swap the truck with one coming from Sunrise to be delivered to Mt. Vernon. The initial hold up was that the vehicle leaving Sunrise needed a new license and registration before being driven. That has since been remedied, but now weather over the pass is the holdup. What’s so important about the podium? Once we get the podium we will be able to finish up the setup for teaching in the large conference room. Once it’s here we will be able to determine if we still need a lapel mic for speakers, and if we do, what kind to buy that will be compatible with our final setup. Of course, once the podium arrives, we will still need to have Nick come out from campus to install all the wiring and make sure everything is configured correctly.
Internet backup switching: Over Christmas, Nick came out and set up a system that allows our internet to switch between the K20 network and LocalTel whenever the K20 network goes down or slows below a specified threshold. So far, it has only kicked in once. And that had less than desirable effects – we still lost connection. This is because regardless of what network we are on, we are still connected to campus. When the LocalTel signals kicked in, our IP addressed were auto-created by their network. These were interpreted as “outside” the WSU network and not allowed network access. This had to be handled manually on campus to get us our permissions back. Will it happen again? Yes. However, there is a fix. But it involves the installation of more equipment (which we have most of sitting in the server room) and more reconfiguration of our firewall and related system. The college is aware of our need. Jim had a conversation with Kimi Lucas and Bill Bonner about providing CAHNRS IT service to us. They are planning to schedule work – we just don’t know when.
Server room reorganization: The plan is to physically reconfigure our network server system an move it to the corner of its current room and build an enclosure around it. This will allow for the alternative use of the rest of the room. Jerry has developed a plan and is working with Nick to return and help with this project. It would be done in conjunction with the podium installation and installation/reconfiguration of the network equipment. No schedule has been set for this yet.
Phone system upgrades: We are in the same boat as the other R&E Centers. The hold up seems to be in part related to budgetary issues, equipment availability, and scheduling. It is unclear if the ongoing VoIP system updates on campus factor into this. This subject was part of the discuss Jim had with Kimi.
AMS matters
Video conferencing: Earlier this week VC Support Team detected provider-side (K-20) network issues that may have effected video quality. This was mostly an issue for Spokane – Pullman transmissions. The issue was reported to be resolved. No other problems reported.
Conferencing reminder: If you have never connected your laptop to the AMS to send a presentation please be sure to test things out well in advance of your session. And don’t assume that the setup will be the same for all meeting rooms – each room is different. You need to make sure you know how to connect and which adapters if any are needed. Don’t wait until just before your session starts because chances are good that either the room will be in use up to your scheduled time or that there are unforeseen issues with your setup. Also, make sure all updates have been installed on your computer prior to your session so you don’t get stuck waiting for Microsoft updates to install when you are trying to start your meeting.
Campus IT reports
myWSU: Oracle Managed Cloud Services will be performing maintenance on our myWSU Campus environment this weekend. On Friday evening, February 23rd, Oracle will install a critical security update into our Campus Solutions environment. Access to myWSU will be available but end users may experience unexpected results or lose access and need to log back in to re-establish connections if they access myWSU during the maintenance. This should be complete by 7:00 am Saturday.
W-2 Phishing: The Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) has issued an alert on the increase in W-2 related phishing campaigns. Fraudsters often use tax-related phishing emails to get victims to provide personally identifiable information, click on a malicious link, or pay a ransom. for more information visit this page: https://www.us-cert.gov/ncas/current-activity/2018/02/21/IC3-Issues-Alert-Increase-W-2-Phishing-Campaigns.
Termination of POP & IMAP mail services: POP and IMAP services on WSUNIX (mail.wsu.edu) will be discontinued on March 15, 2018. At this time, it will no longer be possible to use mail clients such as Outlook or Eudora to read mail delivered to mail.wsu.edu. For those accounts where mail is forwarded to other locations such as Office 365, that mail will continue to be forwarded at this time. Questions about this should be routed through Cougtech (cougtech@wsu.edu or 509-335-4357).
Campus server maintenance: Maintenance on the back-end servers supporting PERMS, Financial Data Warehouse, Cougar Manager, Point of Sale, and E-commerce is planned. However, they keep scheduling then postponing this work due to a variety of issues that keep cropping up. They will send out an update on the schedule to the list I monitor. This maintenance will affect all “consumers” of these services for about 90 minutes while the work is performed.