Research In Motion’s (RIM) Blackberry technology provides ‘push’ technology services for e-mail. To accomplish this ’push’ capability, RIM servers fetch mail from your existing e-mail account and in turn ‘push’ it to your Blackberry device. In order for this to work properly, your University Internet ID (x.500) Username and Password must be stored on Research In Motion servers.

The practice of placing your password in other systems is a form of ‘sharing’ that is prohibited by the Standard—Passwords (Appendix Q) of the University’s Acceptable Use of Information Technology Resources policy.

The University’s Chief Information Officer, the responsible University officer for this policy, has made an exception to this standard for the use of Blackberry devices. This exception decision is a result of University-wide consultation, including with security staff, which weighed the benefits against the risks.

Posted 3:21 PM | Permalink

Today at approximately 12 p.m., the OIT Disaster Recovery team conducted a test of the WBOB Data Center Alert notification system. As part of this test, we requested that anyone who received the test message reply to the message.

However, we sent the message in such a way that any replies to the message would also cc: the dcalert list. As a result, anyone on this list was flooded with replies to the message, beginning immediately after the test was sent.

We thought that the test was set up to reply only to our department e-mail address. We did not realize that it was set up to cc: the dcalert list. We shut off the dcalert fowarding before 12:10, which resolved the issue. We apologize for flooding everyone’s email — and for those who gave us cell phone numbers, for overfilling their text messages.

Posted 2:04 PM | Permalink

Do NOT click on the link or reply to the e-mail titled "Webmail Quota Has Exceeded the Set Limit."

The link asks for your e-mail address, username, and password. The University will NEVER ask for your user name and password in an e-mail.

Posted 3:47 PM | Permalink

All switch maintenance in the OIT data centers is now complete. All systems should now be up and running. If your application is still offline, call 1-HELP on campus, (612) 301-4357.

OIT engineers are investigating a layer 3 latency issue between 90 Church and WBOB. Updates will be posted at on the System Status page.

Posted 8:57 AM | Permalink

At approximately 11:40, on May 20, 2009, there was a brief drop in power to the Twin Cities East Bank campus. Some outlying athletic facilities were not affected.

Because power was dropped to several of OIT’s data centers, many centrally supported services went offline until servers were fully restored. Most servers rebooted automatically, and services began immediately coming back on line. However, several servers needed to be manually rebooted and therefore are taking longer to come back up. E-mail was fully functional by 1:20 p.m. There is still intermittent availability for voicemail.

If you have any questions, call 1-HELP on campus at (612) 301-4357.

Posted 12:38 PM | Permalink

The move to Google Apps for the University of Minnesota was featured in the May 8 issue of the Pioneer Press. Read the story

Posted 12:38 PM | Permalink

May 3 (7:00 p.m.)
The cooling system in the WBOB data center has been repaired. All IT systems, applications, and tools have been brought back on line and should now be functioning normally. If you continue to experience issues with any systems, check the System Status page, or call 1-HELP.

Sunday, May 3 (4:30 p.m.)
Systems are beginning to come back online. Check the system status page for the status of individual systems.

Friday, May 1
Starting at 5 a.m. on Sunday May 3, 2009, for up to 12 hours, systems and applications that students and faculty normally use that are centrally supported will be unavailable for use.

This outage is required for the Office of Information Technology to repair a leak to the cooling system in one of its data centers.

Please plan accordingly. We recognize the importance of the University’s core systems at this busy time, and we apologize for any inconvenience this causes. For more information, visit the System Status page. If you have any questions, call 1-HELP at (612) 301-4357.

Posted 1:57 PM | Permalink