This Sunday morning between 7 and 8:30 am we will be performing maintenance on one of the supporting database servers of the College primary web sites (www.middlebury.edu, www.miis.edu).  As the supporting databases are part of a high availability cluster we do not anticipate a service interruption but are performing this activity during our established maintenance window as a precaution.

LIS is planning the following maintenance activities this Sunday, December 15^th between 7 am and 10 am:

• We will be upgrading our VPN system (vpn.middlebury.edu). There will be a less than 30 minute service interruption of VPN access to the College from off-campus between 7 am and 9 am.
• We will be upgrading the firewall at the Monterey Institution of International Studies. There will be a less than 30 minute service interruption of Internet connectivity to MIIS. This will include the site-to-site VPN connection between MIIS and Middlebury.
• We will be applying a patch to our MiddCloud system that includes MiddFiles.  There will be a less than 15 minute service interruption to MiddFiles between 7 am and 8 am.

LIS is planning the following maintenance activities next weekend, on Saturday December 21^st and Sunday December 22^nd:

• On Saturday, December 21^st between 7 am and 12 pm (noon),  we will be performing maintenance on our servers. For many services, there may be up to a 15 minute interruption. Middlebury and Monterey’s email and primary web sites will not be affected by this maintenance work.
• On Sunday, December 22^nd between 7 am and 10 am,  we will be conducting a test of the redundancy of our network. Some campus buildings will not have network access for approximately 30 minutes during this test.  A list of these buildings is available at the end of this message.
• On Sunday, December 22^nd between 8 am and 12 pm (noon),  we will also be upgrading our Internet firewalls.  We expect several interruptions of Internet connectivity lasting approximately 30 minutes during this period.  We will continue to test and fine-tune the new firewall into the afternoon on Sunday. While we do not expect significant service interruptions in the afternoon, it may be necessary to make adjustments that could cause brief interruptions for isolated services. (You can see the availability of our major systems at http://www.middlebury.edu/offices/technology/help/alerts).

As always, we appreciate your patience and understanding as this essential maintenance work is completed in our continual effort to improve our IT services.

—

Middlebury Campus billings that will have network connectivity service interruptions for approximately 30 minutes on Sunday, 22^nd between 7 am and 10 am:

This Sunday morning the following network and system maintenance items are scheduled during our regular maintenance window.

(1)    Between 6:30 am and 8:00 am, replace a network switch that provides network connectivity to the 3^rd floor of BiHall.  There will be a less than 30 minute interruption of network connectivity to all computers on the 3^rd floor of BiHall.

(2)    Between 8 am and 9 am, apply a patch to Web Help Desk.  There will be a less than 10 minute interruption of service for Web Help Desk.

This Sunday morning during our maintenance window we will be performing the following activities:

(1)    Between 6:30 and 10:00 am EST we will apply a service pack to our Exchange cluster that provides email services for @middlebury.edu and @miis.edu.  Due to the redundant configuration of our Exchange environment we do not expect there will be a service disruption.  You may be asked to re-authenticate during or following this window the next time you connect with an outlook.

(2)    Between 7:00 and 8:30 am EST we will be adjusting the configuration of Web Help Desk as recommended by the vendor to support the access of content on 3^rd party systems. There will be a less than 10 minute period when Web Help Desk is unavailable.

(3)    Between 7:00 and 9:00 am EST we will be upgrading components of our real audio/video server (muskrat), it’s content is accessible and served by CONTENTDM.  There will be a less than 10 minute period when the associated digital content hosted on this system is unavailable.

(4)  Between 7:00 and 9:00 am EST we will be upgrading components of our ERes Library system (bearcat).  There will be a less than 10 minute service interruption of ERes.

(5)    Between 8:00 and 10:00 am EST we will be upgrading papercut to v13.4 – there will be a less than 10 minute service interruption to the following printing related servers during this window:

1. Papercut
2. Spruce
3. Bombay
4. Beech
5. Walnut

Additionally there will be an approximately 10 minute interruption of Web Print services generally and approximately 30 minute interruption of printing services generally when the papercut database is upgraded.  Additionally a number of printing stations (generally Kyocera-Mita) will require a hands-on visit, a software update with a restart that will take place during the later hour of our maintenance window.

We appreciate your patience as these essential maintenance activities are performed.