Since I won’t be at tomorrow’s the monthly faculty meeting, I thought I’d dedicate my IT Blog to the related agenda items.
- Internet connection upgrade: As mentioned in the past, we began upgrading our system back in December when Nick Pappin, CAHNRS IT, came and installed new equipment designed to handle all of incoming and outgoing data traffic. This was part of a project to integrate the shop’s internet with the rest of the Center and to handle problems with an unreliable K-20 network. An unfortunate consequence of where that project left off was that when we switch over to the LocalTel backup network when K-20 drops, our signals no longer appear to come from a trusted WSU source and are blocked by campus. To fix this, additional equipment has to be installed and configured to prevent this.
What’s the hold up on this? Installation of the additional equipment and configuration is part of a broader project that involves the upgrade of our VoIP (digital phone) system. - VoIP phone system update: This is a big project that encompasses all of the R&E Centers. Campus has made the initial steps to upgrade their on-campus system to handle the integration of all the off-campus units. To handle a project of this magnitude they are using a project task tracking program that we are looped into. We have a set of tasks that we are responsible to get the ball rolling. Most of this is informational in nature, involving the number of phones, assigned extensions, physical location of phone and data outlets (both existing and new), and a few other technical tidbits. Jerry should be able to pass this information on to Nick tomorrow when he drops by for a quick visit. In the meantime, CAHNRS IT has been working on other preliminary tasks to prepare for our installations and configurations. We hope to find out soon when the actual work will take place.
- Conference Podium: Good news – the podium is here! Now we just need Nick to come and hook it up for us. We should also find out if we still need a lapel mic, and if so, what type. Although we haven’t received any complaints recently about sound quality at remote sites. If anyone has heard anything, please let me know. The only problems I am aware of can be traced back to remote sites leaving their mics on resulting in sound feedback.
As a side note – if you are hosting a presentation here, please remind remote sites to mute their mics. - Other items to mention: This week we saw some issues pop up related to connection issues. Some of this was related to the change-over to Daylight Savings Time. Campus had to remotely change some settings to both of the new units that fixed this. The two older Polycom units had to be changed here manually. However, there is still an issue for the older units not being fully recognized by AMS. The result is that classes and meeting will not automatically dial to us. We have to dial in to connect. They are aware of the issue and trying to fix it. I will update this post as soon as I hear that it is resolved.
The other thing that happened this week was no sound to the Stockwell room system. Fortunately, this was an easy fix. For future reference to all: the black soundbar under the monitors has its own power button. Normally, this is not turned off since it goes into standby mode when not in use. But if someone hits the button or we have a power outage, the unit’s power will go off. So, if you don’t have sound and everything else is working, check the power button.
Campus &/or CAHNRS IT Items
The Radius server maintenance: Last Friday (3/9) maintenance work was performed on the Radius service underlying infrastructure for most wireless and VPN services at WSU. This was done to add functionality to extend the service to WSU Extension sites. Although they predicted that there would be no interruption to services, there were. All services are reported to be back to normal. However, it is possible that this impacted our older Polycom units’ connection to AMS. This is being checked into.
VoIP Maintenance: Tonight (3/15) between 8 pm and midnight the ITS VoIP team is moving Pullman & Everet’s voice traffic off the existing ASA firewall to the data center Palo Alto firewall. This will cause a complete voice traffic outage, including internal calls, off-campus calls and 911. Service outage is not expected to last more than ½ hour. The team has scheduled a total of 4 hours for prep, move, and follow up testing to ensure no customer impact following completion of the maintenance window.
Windows server patches: Microsoft issued security patches for Tier 1 servers. These are systems that campus maintains by downloading the patches and making the patch files available to systems managers. After a host of problems downloading and syncing those uncorrupted files, they were finally made available to select server managers. Now, various unspecified Windows servers on campus will be undergoing updates.
Digital Measures/Activity Insight: Digital Measures – Activity Insight will be performing scheduled maintenance on Friday, March 16 from 7 p.m. to 9 p.m. PST and will be unavailable during the maintenance period. Access to Activity Insight will not be available during this maintenance period and end users who attempt to log into Activity Insight during this timeframe may experience no access or unexpected results while maintenance is being performed. Access will return to normal when the maintenance is complete.