From Chris White, UHDS IT Director:

The updates we did in The Gem yesterday didn’t solve the network issues we’ve been having over there. At this point the problem likely exists due to some offending device connected to the network. We’re going to start monitoring traffic with Wireshark by connecting a computer to the building switch this afternoon. If we don’t find anything immediately obvious it may take few days of logs to figure it out.

So, please have your staff let The Gem residents know, when they call or email, that we are actively working on the issue and that it’s our top priority. These things can just take time to track down.

From the desk of Andrew Wheeler:

Colleagues,

With the school year getting underway I want to take a moment and remind everyone of how we can help create a welcoming and inclusive environment for our students and the broader OSU Community.

What is the reminder?    

Students and Employees now have the right to use their preferred name. This is outlined in the University’s Name-In-Use policy.

When is this effective?

This policy was announced in February via Inform. A reminder with the kick off of school seems prudent.

Why is the reminder being sent?

With students arriving at OSU this week, it’s possible you’ll get questions about this. We all want to create a welcoming and supportive environment for all of our students, faculty, and staff, so want to be sure you have the right information.

How does this affect me?

If contacted about using a preferred name, please refer to these relevant links:

ONID outlines a name change procedure and I recommend you walk the user through as much of the process as they prefer: http://oregonstate.edu/helpdocs/accounts/onid/onid-name-changes

Life@OSU Announcement from January 2017 for additional context: http://oregonstate.edu/dept/ncs/lifeatosu/2017/changes-to-osu-online-application-better-reflect-student-identity/

Please be aware that we need to do our best to support the computer lab at Tykeson hall (at the OSU Cascades campus). If we are unable to resolve a problem we can make a ticket and contact Greg Chilcote, Shannon Osborne, or David Damon to make them aware of the issue so it can be addressed.

If we get a report of printing problems, David has asked that we have the customer powercycle the printer as that resolves the issue most of the time.

Before we schedule a computer rebuild, we need to investigate and determine that there is a legitimate need for rebuild.  In many cases we can get the computer to the standard the customer needs without rebuilding.  Legitimate needs for rebuild include:

• Machine has been offline for a long time and needs tons of updates, Office needs to be upgraded, machine is still running SEP, etc.
• Persistent issues with the machine that are still problematic after troubleshooting
• Malware infection
• Operating System change

In particular we should not be scheduling rebuilds just because a computer is running slowly or being transferred to a new user- we can troubleshoot performance issues and clean up unnecessary profiles faster and easier than doing a rebuild.

When doing troubleshooting, it’s vital to include the steps taken as part of the troubleshoot in your ticket updates.  The machine details (specifically hostname and inventory ID) are required information; using the template but not entering those details is not sufficient.  Failing to include troubleshooting steps or machine details in the ticket will be considered a performance issue.

Finally, if you schedule a machine to be picked up for hardware troubleshooting at the build bench, please specifically state this in the ticket and highlight that line so it’s very visible to Field and Bench staff.

Let me know if you have questions.

The password for the dca_test account (used for testing Data Warehouse connections) has been updated as of 1/11/2016.  The new password has been saved in KeePass.