Data Center Firewall Upgrade Will Make Enterprise Services Unavailable Night of January 3

The data center firewall in the Computing Center must be upgraded to higher performing hardware and this will take place on the night of January 3 from 10 p.m. to 2 a.m. Upgrading a firewall makes services protected by the firewall unavailable while the hardware is replaced and the services brought back online. A number of key enterprise services (see the lists below) will be unavailable for varying amounts of time during the upgrade window.

Affected Services
Ensuring the availability of these services will be our first priority:

•    UIS Portals (MyCUInfo & MyCUBoulder)

•    Exchange (all messages will queue)

•    CULink (all messages will queue)

•    www.colorado.edu (some content will be unavailable - web pages may not load or visitors will see a "down" page)

•    Content management for WWW Next Generation content will be unavailable

•    Access to www.colorado.edu content via spot and rintintin will be unavailable

•    Desire2Learn

•    Outgoing mail routing (smtp.colorado.edu)

•    CU-Boulder Identity Manager

Ensuring availability of these services will happen after the group of services above:

•    CU Clicker Registration

•    CUPD photo lookup

•    Google Search (search field on WWW will not work)

•    Hippo

•    Mobile MyCUInfo (m.colorado.edu/mycuinfo)

•    Northstar

•    E-mail Rosters

•    CU Select Access

•    Cuservices.colorado.edu

Impact
If the upgrade process goes as planned, the services in the priority group will be unavailable for 60 minutes or less. Bringing some services back online will likely take longer, but be completed within the four-hour window.

There is never a convenient time for doing an upgrade that disrupts access to critical campus services. OIT surveyed campus departments for input on an appropriate time and day for this upgrade in order to strike a balance between campus business needs and demands on IT personnel at a time of year that resources are often thinly stretched.

We appreciate your understanding and patience while this important upgrade is completed and will do everything possible to lessen the impact and ensure you have access to critical campus services.