Issue #82 June 2009

Contents

Prior notice of major IT service interruption in July 2009 for data centre power upgrade: July 10-13, 2009

Global email to all staff at all campuses from Peter Marshall,
Vice-President (Administration)
______________________________________________________________________________________

I am writing to advise and provide early warning that essential
maintenance work to upgrade power infrastructure will be carried out on
one of the University’s IT data centres; this will have a significant
impact on the availability of some IT services. The work is required in
order to meet the University’s growing and expanding data storage demands.

The power upgrade will occur from 12 noon, Friday 10 July to 12 noon,
Monday 13 July. Every effort has been made to limit the impact of this
upgrade work on our IT services. A range of operating options to
undertake this work (including staggering the work over several nights
or weekends) were considered by external engineering specialists,
however their advice concluded that undertaking the upgrade works over a
continuous 72 hour period, provide the lowest risk of damage to
essential equipment and/or prolonged service interruptions.

While most University IT services will remain available over the upgrade
period, the following services will be affected:

a) University wide services

* SAP: HR Services, Finance and Payroll
The pay input deadline will be brought forward to 11am on Tuesday 7 July
for the pay period ending Friday 17 July 2009. Pay will be disbursed to
bank accounts as normal by Thursday 16 July 2009.

* Some Novell shared directories (details are at the ITS website below).
* Syllabus+
* Advancement systems (discussions are being held to minimise any
disruption to student recruitment activities).
* Allocate+
* Business Intelligence
* i Folders
* Novell shared directories (some - please check the ITS website below).
* Novell user directories – (some - please check the ITS website below).
* Research Master
* Research support services (for details please check the ITS website
below).

b) Services specific to the Faculty of IT
Web servers, Unix and Citrix logins, printing services to 20 users and
Matlab (technical visualisation programming).

c) Services specific to the Faculty of Medicine
MNHS data storage cluster, web and database servers, Moodle (learning
management system), Equella (digital learning object repository),
student placement system and Sakai (staff collaboration).

d) Services specific to Student and Community Services
Career Hub and ZedMed

e) Services specific to Facilities and Services
BEIMS, carpool and space management

f) Services specific to Monash Residential Services (MRS)
Residential Management System

For more detail please check the ITS website at
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/news/powerdown.html

For more information contact the ITS Service Desk on +61 3 99051777 or
at https://secure.monash.edu/its/servicedesk/

-----

Further to the global email sent to all staff this morning on the shut down of the University data centre
next month, a list of affected Faculty servers and services will be made available as soon as possible.

Staff will be kept informed via email and regular notices in the Faculty e-Bulletin and TSG News.

In the interim, urgent inquiries may be directed to Adrian Ling at 990 53755 or 0448505594.

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Email: Managing your email quota

Staff can check their email quota by going to:
https://my.monash.edu.au/email/account/

Staff can increase their email quota by visiting: http://its.monash.edu.au/staff/email/quota/purchasing.html.

This request must be authorised online by providing the cost centre and fund and approved by your Resource Manager.

NOTE: IT Support staff cannot increase your email quota.
This can only be done via Monash ITS by using the online form above.

Q. Is there a limit on the maximum amount of quota I can purchase?
A. Additional disk space is available at a cost of $15 per 100 MB up to a limit of 4,000 MB (4 Gb).

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Fighting spam

Recently, the ITS IMS (Identity and Messaging Services) team completed the roll out of improved spam scanning infrastructure. Since implementing the new anti spam processes and software there has been a reduction of about 6% in spam reaching a user’s inbox.

The process for reporting spam remains the same. Leon Troeth, Manager of IMS urges you to alert the team if any spam gets through by emailing: Spam.Report@monash.edu.au

For more information about Monash spam scanning services, visit: http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/email/spam/

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Safe emails practice: never click on a link within an email

There has been another round of e-mails targeted at Monash staff and students requesting usernames and passwords. The current one is entitled: "Australian Taxation Office - Tax refund"

Please note that Monash University, banks and financial institutions etc will NEVER ask for your account password via email or via telephone.

As these emails are an increasingly common problem, we need all staff to take notice of the safe
e-mail handling procedures and simply delete these fake, but official looking, e-mails.

These procedures can be found here:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/security/email-security.html

http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/security/home/emails.html

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Policy: IT Security Policy

"Monash University’s Information Technology (IT) systems and services are provided to further the objectives of the University and are integral to the effective performance of its operations.

IT Security is the process that ensures the availability, integrity and confidentiality of IT systems and services. Effective IT security is essential to ensure the University meets its obligations for security, privacy and preservation of intellectual property.

Monash University recognizes that all Authorized Users should be made aware of their responsibilities for IT security and for the need for effective IT security management."

Staff are recommended to read the Monash University; IT Security Policy:

http://www.policy.monash.edu/policy-bank/management/its/it-security-policy.html

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Fines for late return of SPSS/AMOS loan CDs

Staff who require SPSS or AMOS installed at home, on a laptop, or on any Macintosh computer need to borrow the installation CDs from Monash ITS. These instructions have been previously published in TSG news.

Unfortunately, the Faculty of Medicine, Nursing and Health Sciences staff are continually returning these CDs late and so delaying other staff getting access to this media. Therfore, Monash ITS will be enforcing a late return fine system.

Please note that there are no costs involved in installing the media.
However in the event the media is not returned within 5 (five) days after it is sent to you, your Faculty/Division will incur an automatic $100 late fee.

In order to avoid paying a late return fee, you must return the SPSS Work at Home Media to ITS within 5 (five) days.

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New guest wireless service

Last month, a new guest wireless service was initiated, allowing visitors to have temporary access to the Monash wireless network. This followed a two week pilot of the service run at the Faculty of Medicine, in building 75 and other Monash Venues.

Guest wireless provides an easier to use and more consistent experience for visiting academics, guest students and conference attendees who wish to have internet connectivity while they are at Monash.

This service has been implemented with the new Cisco WISM technology and uses the new ‘web authenticated’ open wireless network which does not require any configuration.

The only requirement is a valid Monash username/password. Guests will need to obtain this via their local IT Support group.

Alternatively, visiting academics and students, from an eduroam participating institution can log on to the guest wireless with their home university username in the format username@university.edu.au

The service is part of the 2009 Wireless improvement program.

For more information about connecting to guest wireless, visit http://www.its.monash.edu.au/wireless/guest-conn.html

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Monash University Procurement - Desktop and notebook tender update

Over the last twelve months a panel of technical and procurement staff chaired by Ed Sheaf from Enterprise Workstation Services (EWS) has been involved in a tendering project to appoint  providers for desktop and notebook ICT hardware. The panel with representatives from across the University has adopted the University’s new procurement strategy to identify and document the organisation’s product and service needs and to engage potential vendors.

The panel are currently reviewing the responses from the vendors and conducting interviews regarding their proposals.  All vendors who have been short-listed for further consideration have provided hardware for evaluation. This evaluation is being undertaken by technical staff from ITS and several faculties including FMNHS. 

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Mobile Phone Help Desk

A "Corporate Help Desk" has been set up through Solve Communications to answer all questions and enquiries that Monash staff may have regarding the purchasing of mobile communications and Telstra MobileNet. These queries may range from "how to operate a handset" through to "arranging a transfer of ownership". 

Details of the contact number are available at:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/phones/mobiles/contact.html

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Berwick and Peninsula get VoIP phones

Monash staff at the Berwick are now using the latest phone technology after moving to the new Voice over Internet Protocol (VoIP) telephone system in April.

The VoIP deployment was helped by the whole campus having previously moved to the PC faxing service, so fax machines are no longer used.

VoIP is currently being rolled out to staff at Peninsula and this is due to be complete by the end of May, advises VoIP program manager Robert Jamieson.

As part of the VoIP project, obsolete handsets are being collected in wheelie bins for recycling in keeping with the Green IT initiatives.

For project information please visit http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/projects/voip/index.html

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Macintosh access to Netware files

To access the Monash ITS Novell shared drives (e.g V:\ drive), please follow the instructions available at:
http://www.its.monash.edu.au/staff/systems/novell/macaccess

Please note that staff may need to have their Novell password reset to work from the Macintosh Operating System.

If your password does not work, please log a request through your Department's IT Jobdesk.

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Apple iPhone OS 3.0 and the Monash wireless network

It has been reported that the latest iPhone OS (3.0) is not autoconnecting to the Monash wireless network.

Any solution / work-around will be distributed by TSG news and be update on the ITS website.

Please note that as the platform is currently not officially supported by the Monash ITS Service Desk, there is no ETA on a resolution.

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Undergraduate Student Labs Software - 2009 (Deadline June 30)

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