This weekend’s SAP and myOleMiss upgrade has been completed, and you may begin using the system. IT staff will be monitoring the system to assure that all functionality is working properly.
UM Wireless Network Update
April 14, 2011 by
Photo of an installed wireless access point
The University of Mississippi (UM) wireless network began in 2007 and, over time, has expanded to include more than 70 buildings. The wireless network is managed by the Office of Information Technology (IT) and currently consists of 822 wireless access points, a number that grows daily. The most recent additions came this past fall when wireless access was made available in Bondurant Hall, Bishop Hall, and Hume Hall. There are 56 wireless access points in Campus Walk, the highest number for any UM residential area. To find out about current wireless availability, visit Wireless Service Support.
Keeping up with Ever Increasing Bandwidth Needs
Provisioning and administering bandwidth is an ongoing challenge for most major universities. IT works diligently to provide a network that is open, flexible, and secure and promotes an optimal learning environment. This involves giving priority to network traffic that is closely tied to UM’s academic mission such as access to Blackboard and myOleMiss, research projects, and administrative activities. This past fall, IT acquired more commodity Internet bandwidth to accommodate increased network usage and also adjusted network management policies to give more bandwidth to residence halls after 6 p.m. when many UM offices are closed. IT also added fair share policies that prevent a single person from taking all of the available bandwidth. IT evaluates bandwidth requirements regularly to determine if more resources are needed to accommodate growing demand. Plans are already underway to acquire more overall bandwidth for August 2011.
Figure 1 shows Oxford campus bandwidth usage during the last year. Blue represents outgoing traffic, and green represents incoming. Note the increases and decreases that follow the academic calendar. That is, when students are not on campus, bandwidth usage plunges. Also, note the overall increase over time.
Figure 1. UM Bandwidth Consumption
A related issue, which is also an ongoing challenge for most major universities, is curbing illegal downloads and copyright infringement on the campus network, especially in residence halls. IT receives several reports each week from groups such as the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) of network users illegally downloading movies or music. In these cases, the offender is blocked from the campus network, and disciplinary actions are initiated. See http://umnoc.olemiss.edu/blocked for a list of currently blocked addresses. With the increase in legitimate media streaming services, it is becoming more and more difficult to discern in an automated way which activities are illegal and which are not. This sometimes leads to network policies that inadvertently throttle legitimate traffic. Good communication between IT and users of the network is crucial in order to prevent legitimate streaming services from being throttled or blocked.
Network Access Control (NAC) = Safe Network
In September 2009, IT implemented Cisco Systems’ Network Access Control (NAC) Agent as a security measure, allowing the network to identify the user and grant access. NAC systems are used broadly in university and corporate settings as a means for maintaining a clean network. Users of the UM wireless network are required to install a small application called the NAC Agent on their computers when they first connect. Once installed, the software (Cisco Clean Access Agent) will enable these computers to automatically logon and remain online throughout the day. The NAC Agent also allows for the connecting system to be checked, for example to ensure anti-virus software and operating system patches are up to date.
IT Helpdesk call logs suggest that most issues reported with the wireless network are actually problems installing the NAC client on a particular laptop. For example, the NAC Agent will not install correctly if the computer is infected with a virus or has a firewall that is not configured correctly. For a full list of potential NAC issues, see http://wireless.olemiss.edu/nac.html.
Although the use of NAC technology is critical for network security, it can cause problems for gaming devices. Browser-less consoles (e.g., Wii) which have wireless-only capability are not supported, because they can’t authenticate the WebID and password. These devices boot up and try to connect to the wireless network, but will not be successful. Gaming consoles with an Ethernet port (e.g., Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3) can connect via Ethernet cable to the wired network without WebID authentication. IT is currently working with vendors to incorporate support for browser-less devices and plans to “go live” with this functionality in August 2011.
Contact Us
Since January 2011, fewer than fifty trouble tickets have been logged regarding the wireless network, yet in this same time frame over 90,000 devices were logged in. If you are experiencing any technical difficulties, please contact the IT Helpdesk at 662- 915-5222 or helpdesk@olemiss.edu so that issues can be addressed and resolved. This includes reports of a slow network. In these cases, it is very important to note the time and location of the access as well as the kind of service that was being used such as Facebook or Blackboard. We appreciate your help as we continue to work to provide a high quality network experience for everyone.
Never Miss the Bus
April 14, 2011 by
Oxford University Transit buses are now GPS enabled for real-time tracking, and riders can get bus schedule information using their computers or smart phones. Riders can now stay on schedule, plan their travel, and never miss a bus again.
NEXTBus map show realtime location of O.U.T. buses
Screenshot of Live Bus Schedule Links
The O.U.T. buses’ real-time transit information is made available by NEXTbus, a transit management solution provider which uses satellite technology and advanced computer modeling to track vehicles on their routes. NEXTBus can estimate vehicle arrivals with a high degree of accuracy. On their site, you can even see mapped bus positions updated constantly.
While we have had overlays of the bus routes available on the campus map for a while, we have now added links to this live information also.
Mobile Campus Map
NEXTBus Mobile
Our mobile campus map has links to the mobile version of the NEXTBus app. This version determines the closest bus stops to your location, and then it displays the arrival times for those buses. For the mobile site, direct your smart phone to m.olemiss.edu and choose Campus Map. The Live O.U.T. link is at the bottom.
Online Tutorials
April 14, 2011 by
Tutorial Links
People often want to know what online resources are available to help them get up to speed on new software. To help answer that, we have just compiled a list of tutorials, how-tos, and video demonstrations for some popular programs. Among these are Outlook 2010 (which many employees will begin using with the current Exchange / UM Mail migration), Word 2010, Dreamweaver CS5, and Photoshop CS5.
These Online Tutorial links are a new part of the IT Training site where employees can also review and register for workshops and seminars conducted by IT staff. The tutorials themselves are located on Adobe or Microsoft websites where you may find even more information about their products.
The Adobe videos were of particular interest to me since I spend much of my time in Dreamweaver and Photoshop. Our lists for the Adobe products only include the “Getting Started” series for each, but once you are on Adobe’s sites you will see that many other tutorials are continually being added. Microsoft’s sites have a wealth of information, and we hope our links will make it easier for you to find it all.
Even if you consider yourself proficient in the use of one of these programs, you’re bound to learn something new after just a few minutes with these tutorials. I can’t wait to try out a couple of new Photoshop techniques I picked up.
Firefox 4 – Not Recommended
April 5, 2011 by
You may have recently read about or been prompted to upgrade your Web browser to Firefox version 4. This new version of Firefox, released on March 22, 2011, has been causing its own share of headaches on the UM campus in recent days.
Firefox 4, on both the Windows and Mac platforms, is not compatible with myOleMiss, due to issues with the SAP portal environment. Blackboard also does not support this version of the browser. For these reasons, the IT Helpdesk recommends that you do not update your browser to version 4 at this time.
If you have already updated to Firefox version 4 and are currently experiencing issues, you will need to roll back to an earlier version. You can download the previous version of Firefox 3.6.16 at http://www.mozilla.com/en-US/firefox/all-older.html.
Important News About Employee Email
April 5, 2011 by
Faculty and staff email accounts will be migrated from the current email system, to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010 by August 1, 2011.
Introduction to Exchange Server 2010
The Office of Information Technology (IT) is pleased to announce that faculty and staff email will be migrated from the current email system to Microsoft Exchange Server 2010, beginning April 6th. This change is being made to provide faculty and staff with the most up-to-date email features available. Further, because the load on the campus network and servers is expected to grow, with another large increase occurring in August 2011, it is necessary for this change to begin now.
The deployment of Exchange Server 2010 will integrate email and calendar functions into one user account, so that both can be accessed from one email client (e.g., Outlook). Faculty and staff will no longer have to request a separate Exchange account for calendar sharing. This change will also effectively separate faculty and staff email from students’, so that each email system will exist independently of the other.
The Exchange platform will immediately provide a feature-rich environment whether you use Microsoft Outlook 2010/2011 or a web-browser to log in to the Outlook Web Application (OWA). Another major benefit resulting from migration will be that your email will be in sync across multiple devices. This means that if you use multiple devices to check your email, you will no longer have to delete the same messge from each device. As long as you leave a message in your Exchange inbox, it will be available to you regardless of the access method.
Configuration of Exchange on desktop clients (e.g. Outlook 2010/2011) and mobile devices is now much simpler because of Exchange’s Autodiscover capability. Setup on mobile devices is easier because in most cases the user will only need to enter an email address, password, and the Exchange domain address. The device should then be able to configure itself.
Exchange also provides for greater mobility by allowing off-campus access without having to connect to the virtual private network (VPN). This feature is compatible with Outlook 2007 and 2010 on a PC. For Macs, Apple Mail and Outlook 2011 are the supported email clients.
Exchange 2010 Migration Process
All faculty and staff email accounts will be migrated from the current email system to the Exchange Server 2010 by August 1, 2011. It is important that the migration be completed by this date before the beginning of the Fall 2011 semester. Beginning Wednesday, April 6th, faculty and staff will be able to sign up for a migration date during the months of April, May, June, and July, to have their email account migrated to Exchange.
Nine-month employees are requested to sign up for a migration date as soon as possible so that your account can be migrated before you leave for the summer. Faculty and staff who do not sign up for a migration date before July 15, 2011 will have their email accounts migrated at the discretion of IT. Department heads or supervisors who are aware of faculty members who are on sabbatical may need to contact IT on behalf of the faculty member to make alternate arrangements for migrating their email data to Exchange.
To migrate your account for Email Migration Registration at www.olemiss.edu/migrateme.
To migrate your departmental email address, please sign in at www.olemiss.edu/migratedept using your departmental WebID and password, and then complete the email migration registration form.
Before your migration date, IT strongly encourages you to clean up your Webmail email account and/or desktop email client by deleting old messages that you no longer need from the Inbox, Sent, and Trash folders. By cleaning up your account prior to your migration date, the migration process will run much smoother. Please note that on the date of your migration, you will not have access to your email from 10-11:00 A.M. Access to myOleMiss and Blackboard may also be interrupted temporarily until after 11:00 A.M.
Supported Desktop Clients and Mobile Devices
The supported desktop email clients for connecting to Exchange 2010 are:
Desktop email clients:
Outlook 2007 [Windows]
Outlook 2010 [Windows]
Outlook 2011 [Mac OS X]
Apple Mail, iCal, Address Book [Mac OS X]
Outlook Web App
Supported browsers:
Internet Explorer
Firefox
Chrome
Safari
Mobile devices:
Windows Phone 7
Blackberry
Android
iPhone, iPad, and iPod Touch
Migration applies to all faculty and staff accounts even if email is forwarded to a separate departmental email server. If you plan to continue forwarding email to another server, it is necessary to set up the forward after migration by logging into ummail.olemiss.edu.
In order to make the email migration process as seamless as possible, IT will need some basic information from you about how you access your Ole Miss email. This information will be requested when you visit the online migration signup form. For example, if you access your Ole Miss email through Webmail in a web-browser exclusively and intend to use the Exchange equivalent, Outlook Web App (OWA), then after IT migrates your account on the date of your choosing, you will access your email by visiting, ummail.olemiss.edu.
Alternatively, users who use Outlook 2007 or 2010, and already have an Exchange account set up for access to the shared calendar function, will not have to make any changes to Outlook unless Outlook was set up as a POP client. In that case the Send/Receive group will need to be edited.
IT recommends that all users upgrade to one of the supported email clients listed above. Anyone who is not currently using one of the preferred email clients, and needs their email data and address books migrated from an unsupported email client such as Eudora, will need to indicate this within the online migration form.
Training
IT plans to conduct Outlook 2010 email and calendar training sessions during the following time periods:
Week of April 11th
Week of April 18th
For information relating to these training sessions and to register, please visit ittraining.olemiss.edu. Microsoft also provides training for Outlook 2010 which may be helpful during this transition.
Please visit the migration FAQ as well for additional information relating to the migration process. We are currently in the process of updating our email configuration guides and will be continually updating the IT Helpdesk Web site with useful information. Please do not hesitate to contact the IT Helpdesk at 662-915-5222, if you have any questions related to email migration.