Guilford College Information Technology & Services

2009 Network Refresh Cycle Continues in Founders 11/20/2009

As part of the 2009 Network Refresh Cycle IT&S will be replacing networking equipment providing service to the First and Second Floors of Founders Hall .  The replacement is scheduled for Friday 11/20 from 5 - 7 PM.  This service will not effect IP phone users, analogue phone lines, Wireless Access, WQFS or Cable TV.  During this period other wired networking locations on the First and Second floors will be inconsistently available.

If you have questions, please contact IT&S at 316-2525 or via email at its@guilford.edu.

"2009 Network Refresh Cycle" Goes to Pope House 11/12/09

Continuing our effort to replace aging network equipment, the "2009 Network Refresh Cycle" continues this week with IT&S visiting Pope House on Thursday, November 12, 2009.  Between 8:30 and 9:30 a.m. wired networking services will be inconsistently available.  Analogue telephone lines and Cable TV will not be effected. 

If you have any questions, please contact the Help Desk at 316-2525 or via its@guilford.edu.

Voice Mail Full Message 10/28/09

If you saw your voice mail light come on this afternoon on your phone, and were surprised when the voice mail system told you your voice mail box was full and you had to delete messages in order to receive new ones, let us try to explain what that was all about....

First part....when you delete a message on your phone, it actually does not go away immediately.  It becomes a "soft delete" and sets a counter to remain in your voice mail box for 15 days just in case you need to go back and retrieve it.  When 15 days are up for a particular message, it auto deletes from the box, can no longer be retrieved, and space is restored that it took up. 

Second part....When we did the big Cisco Phone Switch Upgrade on October 16th, all voice mail messages were backed up.  However, when they were restored after the upgrade, it reset the counter on those old deleted messages to another 15 days as if they had just been deleted.  These stored messages along with what you have been doing since the 16th caused certain voice mail boxes to become full this afternoon.  So your phone lit up telling you your box was full and to remove deleted messages.  Those were the much older deleted messages and you should not have to re-respond to them.

Fix...We upgraded all voice mail boxes this afternoon to double their capacity, so this problem immediately went away and will not be encountered in the future...unless you're just a really heavy voice mail recepient :) 

Contact the Help Desk at 2525 or its@guilford.edu should you have any further questions. 

Behind the Scenes in IT&S - An Education - Part 1

There is alot in IT&S that most people never see...wires, cables, switches, servers, etc that make this campus communicate internally as well as to the outside world.  It's not magic as some may believe :)

So we thought the campus would enjoy seeing some of the behind the scenes images and work that IT&S does, so that you get a better understanding of what it takes to make things happen. 

The first in an ongoing series we will bring to you are photos of the recent Bryan Hall Switch Replacement that networks and systems undertook while everyone was away enjoying Fall Break.  Thanks go to Eddie Asad, Merritt Johnson and Brian McCaffrey for their hard work. 

The first thing they had to do was unrack all of the old network switches.  

Secondly they had to individually test 300 cables (for every connection in the switch rack).  Out of the 300 cables that had to be tested, only 1 was bad and replaced, but what people don't realize is even one bad cable would have caused issues for a student.    Thank you Bryan residents...your ping pong table came in handy for this.

 
  

During the cable testing process, the new switches were being configured and readied for the rack mount.     

Finally, the switches are rack mounted, and the cables put back into place.  The uplinks between the switches are now full duplex - 1000Mbps (they were half duplex before).  What does that mean?  Much better throughput connectivity on the network for Bryan residents.  

Voice Mail Upgrade Status

Part 1 of the Cisco Phone Switch Upgrade has been completed on time and was successful!  The upgrade did present a few changes users need to know about. 

• When you enter your voice mail box, the system asks you for your "pin".  This is your current voice mail password, and not a new pin number or your bannerweb pin number.
• Options have changed.  Please listen carefully when entering your voice mail box to hear the new sequence of options.  To listen to new messages press 2. 
• Don't worry if all of your voice mail messages aren't immediately available.  That restore process is ongoing and should complete in another hour or so as of this 5:10 pm writing. 
• Your IP phone is currently registering a time 1 hour ahead of actual EST time.  That will be corrected when Part 2 of the upgrade is completed later this evening.

If you have any questions, please contact the IT&S Help Desk at 316-2525, or via email at its@guilford.edu.

Help Desk Hours during Fall Break 2009

The IT&S Help Desk will be officially closed to walk-in traffic during Fall Break Sunday, October 18 through Friday, October 23.  The Help Desk will reopen for Saturday classes October 24 from 8:30am - 6:00 pm, and resume full operations on Monday, October 26.  With reduced staffing, community members working during Fall Break can expect the following from the IT&S Help Desk between the hours of 8:30am - 5:00pm:

 

• Phone calls into 2525 will be handled in the order they are received.  Because we will have no student staff during that time, some calls may be redirected to voice mail.  Community users are also encouraged to email its@guilford.edu.
• Voice Mail calls will be picked up 3 times per working day.  Approximate times are 9:00 am, 12:00 noon, and 3:00 pm.
• Voice mails and emails should be responded to within a 24 hour period.  Please ensure you leave sufficient information as to error messages and contact information.  
• Media setups previously scheduled through Conference and Events and IT&S will be completed, but no additional media services requests for that week will be possible. 
• Students wishing to check out hard drives or cameras will need to do so before the beginning of Fall Break.

We understand this level of service may cause some inconvenience, and for that we apologize.

Improving Network Service during Fall Break

In an ongoing effort to improve services across campus, IT&S will be replacing the networking equipment in Bryan Hall on Wednesday, October 21, 2009.  During the hours of 9:00 am until 5:00 pm both wired and wireless networking services in Bryan Hall will be inconsistently available.  Analogue telephone lines and Cable TV will not be effected.  Bryan Hall residents who are remaining on campus during Fall Break can come on over to Bauman for network access during those hours.

If you have any questions, please contact the IT&S Help Desk at 316-2115, or via email at its@guilford.edu.

Network Power Equipment Replacements during Fall Break

IT&S will be replacing networking power equipment in several locations on campus during Fall Break.  During these replacements, network services, IP phones and where applicable/available wireless will be unavailable.  Analogue phone lines and Cable TV will not be effected.

The locations and times for these replacements are as follows:

• Tuesday 10/20 from 8:30 AM to 9:00 AM the equipment on the third floor of Frank Family Science Center will be replaced. 
• Tuesday 10/20 from 4:00 PM to 4:30 PM equipment in the Alumni Gym will be replaced. 
• Wednesday 10/21 from 8:00 AM to 8:30 AM the equipment in the Hege Library Lower Level will be replaced.

If you have any questions, please contact the IT&S Help Desk at 316-2115, or via email at its@guilford.edu.

Important Upgrade of Cisco Phone Switch - October 16, 2009

This is a continuation of a July upgrade that had to be postponed due to technical issues on Cisco’s end.  The technical issue has now been resolved, and we are moving forward with the upgrade.

IT&S will be upgrading the college’s Cisco Phone System on Friday, October 16, 2009 to replace the “Dial by Directory” with Speech Recognition so that callers may simply say the name of their intended party.  There are two pieces to the phone switch that must be upgraded:  Voice Mail (VM) and Call manager (CM).

1.)  Voice Mail:  The voice mail system will be down during the upgrade for approximately 5 hours.  This upgrade will begin at 12:00 noon and end by 5:00 pm.
What does this mean to users?

• Users will not be able to access or receive voice mail during the upgrade time.  Callers who dial a user's phone directly will not be able to leave a voice mail message.  An extension will simply ring until answered or the caller disconnects.

• The main campus extension (2000) auto attendant will not be available during this time. All calls to main campus number will be answered by Information Desk staff during the upgrade time.
• Messages already stored in your voice mail box will be unaffected by the upgrade, and will be accessible once the upgrade is complete.

2.)  The Call Manager:  The Call Manager handles all incoming and out-going calls to the college. The Call Manager upgrade is straight forward and should not affect any of our users, as we have redundant servers managing the phones.  We plan to upgrade the call manager after hours on Friday.  The Call Manager server upgrade will begin at 5:00 pm and should be completed by 1:00 am.

Review:
- Upgrade Friday, October 16
- Voice Mail down from 12:00 noon until 5:00 pm (no voice mail or autoattendant, calls answered by humans)
- Call Manager upgrade 5:00 pm until 1:00 am (users not affected)

If you have any questions regarding this important upgrade, please contact the IT&S Help Desk at 316-2525, or email its@guilford.edu

Reminder on College Email Usage Policy

Announcements that are to go to students, or the faculty and staff community should be entered into the Buzz or Beacon.  Users may not email all students or faculty and staff.  Even though we have switched email platforms the guidelines still apply.  Here is the link to the college acceptable use email policy, and the text of the section that pertains to this:
 
"7.  Mass Email & Unsolicited Email: Guilford College uses e-mail as the means for communicating important daily information to students, faculty and staff. The Guilford Buzz is the approved method for distributing such mass electronic communication. While faculty, staff and students can maintain personal group lists, those lists should not be used to send unsolicited email that violates any of the college’s handbooks. Use of groups within Guilford’s electronic directory without approval of the President of the college is forbidden. (At this time, the only approved group use is faculty approval to email the faculty group. All other group usage should be pre-approved.) This policy will be reviewed as needed. Students, faculty or staff with questions or comments about this policy should contact the Chief Technology Officer."
 

If you have any questions about this post, or policy, please contact either Kyle Johnson, or Teresa Sanford.