Information Technology News Archive

1996 - 2017

OIT Data Center

by

Data Center

During October, OIT, Facilities Management, and Design and Construction Services will complete the process of expanding the OIT Data Center facility in Engineering Gateway.  When it is done, it will consolidate systems from the Law Building Data Center (LBDC), and save the campus energy and money.  It will also allow the space formerly occupied by the LBDC to be used to meet the needs of the Law School.

This process will require two interruptions to services.  The first, on October 6, will include:

  • A&BS websites including EH&S, Police, Facilities Management and others
  • Zotmail
  • Campus data warehouse
  • The HR Jobs site and other HR Web Applications  (QuickReq, FastClass etc.)
  • Campus Time Reporting System
  • The SNAP portal and services available through it
  • Campus cashiering, billing and credit card systems, including the Student Billing System, and DEFT for disbursement
  • PayQuest, PALweb, Equipment Management (EQS), and Permanent Budget (PBS)
  • All Graduate Division Applications
  • All Office of Research and ULAR Applications
  • FacServ Facilities ERP applications (work orders and billing), Facilities Tririga system, Facilities iPool, Fleet and Tiscor systems
  • All Kuali applications
  • Campus imaging and document storage applications (including Rapid Return, EROS, Exfiles)
  • Cascade Content Management System
  • OIT confluence wiki
  • SAMS and “Administrative” LDAP

The second interruption will take place the weekend of October 20-21 and (in addition to the services listed above) will include:

  • University Advancement systems (including Advance) and file server
  • A&BS file server
  • All Design & Construction systems
  • All Parking & Transportation systems including MyCommute, Permit Registration System; main Parking website and associated services
  • Access to the UC Learning Center (www.uclc.uci.edu)

Services hosted in Engineering Gateway and other facilities will continue to operate as normal – this includes the campus network and telephone system, email services, EEE, Academic Personnel systems, and research compute clusters.

In Brief August 2012

by

latest news

  • Annual renewals for research software licenses (such as SPSS or Mathematica) are being processed now.  Check for prices and license options on the licensing web site.
  • OIT email services are being reconfigured.  Sent mail will now appear to come from your preference between your UCInetID @uci.edu or your My.Name @uci.edu address.  It will no longer be necessary to configure this in your email client.  You can indicate your preference at the phupdate web site (“which address do you wish to publish?”)
  • UCCSC, the UC system-wide computing support conference will be held August 5-7 at UC Berkeley.
  • DrupalCamp, the annual conference for west coast Drupal developers, was held at UCI July 27-28.
  • UCI Kuali Day will take place at the Pacific Ballroom in the UCI Student Center on Tuesday, August 21.

A New Calendar Service for UCI

by

Oracle Calendar has provided event, meeting, and resource management services to the UCI community for twelve years.   Since Oracle has announced the end of support for this product, OIT conducted a review of alternatives resulting in a decision to offer calendaring services through Microsoft Exchange.

One of the key reasons for selecting Exchange Calendar is compatibility with Microsoft’s Exchange email platform which is already in wide use at UCI.  Cost effectiveness and support for mobile computing (tablets and smart phones) were also major considerations.  The project plan is to use Exchange initially for calendaring only.  The use of Exchange for email will be implemented in a later phase of the project.

Oracle Calendar users have already been issued accounts for the purposes of training and familiarity.  Exchange Calendar will replace Oracle Calendar on August 6.  The Oracle Calendar server will remain available for review purposes for about a month before being permanently retired.

Up-to-date information on the Calendar Project can be found at the OIT Exchange web site.

Learning to Use Exchange Calendar

by

In order to assist Oracle Calendar users with the transition to Exchange Calendar, OIT is offering several means for you to familiarize yourself with the new service.

Live training is being offered at several levels: Introductory and Advanced, as well as specialized training for “delegates” – those who manage other calendars (for example, rooms or campus officers) – and for those involved in IT support.

Introductory classes are offered as small, hands-on classes in Social Sciences Tower room 104, and as larger lecture-style classes in Humanities Gateway room 1030.  You can check the Exchange Calendar training page for the schedule, and you can enroll via the UC Learning Center (search for “Exchange”.)  Advanced classes are also held in SST 104.  Programs for delegates and IT supporters are scheduled on request.

OIT also offers self-help information on the OIT Exchange web site, with detailed information on how to accomplish many common tasks such as logging in via Outlook Web Access or setting up mobile devices.  There also a FAQ and a collection of known issues related to UCI’s implementation of Exchange.

Migrating Oracle Calendar Data

by

OIT will be copying calendar data from Oracle Calendar to Exchange Calendar the weekend of August 4-5, immediately before Exchange Calendar becomes the production calendar on Monday August 6.

Oracle Calendar will become unavailable after close of business on Friday August 3, and Exchange Calendar will be on line at 4am on Monday August 6.

All calendar events, for all Oracle Calendar users and all Oracle Calendar resources, will be transferred.  There are some differences in how calendar events are defined in the two systems:

  • Exchange differentiates between an event that includes only you (an “Appointment”) and an event that includes others (a “Meeting”).
  • Daily Events and Daily Notes in Oracle Calendar will become All-Day Events in Exchange.  Availability will be set as “Free” to avoid scheduling conflicts.
  • Exchange deletes events that you have declined, so Oracle Calendar events you indicated you would not attend will not appear in Exchange.
  • Repeating meetings in Oracle Calendar will be transferred as repeating meetings only if the repetition follows a very simple pattern.  Other repeating meetings will be transferred as a group of independent events.

More information can be found on the Calendar migration web page.