UGA network maintenance on Saturday

EITS will conduct a network maintenance that will result in complete outages of campus internet access and campus information systems beginning at 6 a.m. on Saturday, March 5 and continuing until noon on Sunday, March 6.

The extended time of this maintenance is necessary to allow EITS to complete work that could not be completed during the Oct. 23, 2021 planned maintenance. It is critical to complete this work as soon as possible to provide ample bandwidth and internet capacity for the University. Although the date of this maintenance was selected for a time designed to be least disruptive to the University community, we recognize that this maintenance will be impactful and appreciate your patience.

Please note the maintenance on March 5 will result in a complete outage of access to services. If you are aware of activities planned during this maintenance and would like assistance with planning, please contact Chris Baines.

EITS will also conduct the second planned maintenance of the calendar year on Saturday, Oct. 22. Additional details regarding the Oct. 22 maintenance will be shared in late spring.

Key points:

  • UGA’s Telephone Services will experience complete outages. In case of an emergency, it is important to remember to use a cell phone to contact UGA Police by calling 911 instead of 706-542-2200. The UGA Police Department will still respond to all calls for service during this time. Members of the campus community are reminded that 911 is always the appropriate number to call for an emergency on campus. In the event of a future interruption in landline phone service at UGA, cell phones should be used to contact police.
  • Elevator emergency phones may not work when telephone service is disrupted, and cell connectivity in elevators is unreliable in some buildings. It is recommended to use stairs to the extent possible during the time of the maintenance.
  • Building fire alarm panels may beep continuously until the phone connection is restored and possibly beyond if the system does not reset automatically. During the outage time, there is no need to call the UGA Police Department or Facilities Management Division to report this issue. However, employees and students should remain aware and notify the UGA Police Department if they observe any indications of fire or smoke.
  • Some websites hosted off-campus may experience outages. The University’s primary website and emergency website are hosted off-campus and may not be available for some users depending on their local network configurations.
  • Systems that use services in the UGA Boyd Data Center will experience outages. This also includes UGA websites hosted in the Boyd Data Center.
  • UGA’s Single Sign-On (UGA SSO) also will experience outages. This means individuals will not be able to log in to many UGA-provided information systems, including the following:
    • Zoom, DawgCheck, Athena, Banner Administrative System, DegreeWorks, eLearning Commons (eLC), UGA Elements, UGA Financial Management System, UGA Budget Management System, UGAJobs, UGAmart, OneUSG Connect, and OneUSG Connect Benefits
  • Individuals will also experience outages accessing UGAMail, websites hosted by UGA, the Virtual Private Network (VPN), ArchPass Duo, and information systems hosted by EITS.
  • Wireless networks will also be unavailable, including Paws-Secure, Eduroam, and UGA_Visitors_WiFi.
  • EITS Storage Services including IFS, Research IFS, and Secure IFS will be unavailable.
  • All systems behind the UGA Boyd Data Center departmental firewalls will experience outages to their access to the UGA network.
  • A number of UGA Libraries services resources will not be available for patrons both on campus and off-campus.
    • Access to digital resources such as databases, e-books, online journals, and more will be unavailable. The UGA Libraries website will not be available, so online chat services will not be available. However, individuals can visit  the GIL website  for access to UGA’s catalog of holdings only. Faculty, staff, and students will not be able to log in with their MyID to place books on hold or access full text resources.
    • Patrons will be able to check out books and other reserves from the Main and Science Libraries. While patrons will be able to pick up previously requested interlibrary loan materials, they will not be able to access their ILLiad account to place or check on any interlibrary loan items, and they will not be able to access any ILL articles posted on the web.
    • Most computers in Libraries’ facilities require logins and will not be available during the outage.
    • Because WiFi will not be available, laptops will not be able to connect to the internet. In addition, WEPA printers will not be accessible.
  • Changes to access control or HVAC systems likely will not be possible during the maintenance, but systems will continue to operate on their last set of instructions. New alerts will not be registered in systems that rely on the network for reporting, nor will an alarm be sent by email, text, or phone tree for the areas out of alignment.

Additional details and progress reports will be posted on the EITS website and the EITS Twitter feed.

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