News

What is happening? The University’s student information system Quest will move from its current on-premises environment to Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. The Oracle Cloud offering is pre-configured and tightly integrated with PeopleSoft Campus Solutions, the foundation on which Quest is built, and comes with Oracle’s database software Cloud Manager, a tool that enables optimization of resources, streamlines processes, and improves performance.

Why is this change being made? Oracle's next-generation cloud infrastructure will provide a modern, high-performance environment for our Quest system. Leveraging real-time data analytics, the student information system team will be able to quickly scale development and production environments to meet demand. This leading-edge technology will ensure the Quest support team is in the best position to respond to feature and functionality requests, better supporting and enhancing your overall experience. Visit the project web page to view a full list of benefits.

How will this change impact me?

• There will be no change to visual elements within Quest, or in how students and/or employees interact with the system. 
• This work will impact Quest's infrastructure only (i.e., work will be completed "behind the scenes").
• Once Quest has been moved to the Oracle Cloud environment, hosting of Quest data will move from the University's on-premises data centres to Oracle Cloud's secure Canadian data centres, hosted in Toronto and Montreal.

How secure is Oracle Cloud? The continued privacy and integrity of Quest student information is and will continue to be the project's top priority. A security review and two privacy information risk assessments have been completed and no issues or risks were identified.

This project will take a security by design approach, where Security Information Services will participate throughout the duration of the project, helping to design and review system configurations, conduct regular security assessments, and review and measure risks against the NIST-800-171 security standard. Summaries of this work will be made available on the project site.

Learn more

You are encouraged to visit the Quest moving to Oracle Cloud project page to learn more about this work, view the privacy and security assessment documents, see the project timeline, and project FAQs.

What is happening? Windows Virtual Desktop (WVD), a Microsoft Azure-based system for virtualizing operating systems and applications, is now available for students to use for lab computers and software.

What is Windows Virtual Desktop used for? Windows Virtual Desktop is a Microsoft cloud-based solution that gives users remote access to desktops and applications. WVD can be used as an alternative to, or augmentation of, physical computer labs.

How do users access Windows Virtual Desktop? Students that have been given access to a department’s virtual lab can access Windows Virtual Desktop by logging in to www.wvd.uwaterloo.ca. 

How do I set up a Windows Virtual Desktop environment? IT support staff can enable Windows Virtual Desktop for their department or faculty by submitting a request to rt@uwaterloo.ca. Visit the Windows Virtual Desktop service page for more information.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? The University’s inbound mail record will be updated to route email sent to uwaterloo.ca addresses through the Cisco Cloud servers.

• Current mail delivery path: Internet (i.e., external individual/organization) > Mailservices > Cisco Cloud servers > Office 365/Exchange
• Planned mail delivery path: Internet > Cisco Cloud servers > Office 365/Exchange/Mailservices

When will this change take place? Saturday, May 15 between 8:00 and 10:00 a.m.

What is the impact? No end-user impact is expected.

Note: If desired, individuals may test unique mail delivery configurations following the above maintenance window.

Questions or concerns? Please submit to the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca.

Resolved: Users should be able to access Teams again as expected. If you are experiencing persisting issues, please restart your Teams client.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? Some users may intermittently be unable to access Microsoft Teams through both the web and desktop client. Microsoft is investigating the issue; updates will be provided when available.

What is the impact? Users may experience degraded performance with multiple features. These include but are not limited to:

• Can't send or receive messages 
• Can't join meetings 
• Some channels may not appear 
• Can't join channels 
• Can't join chats 

What do users need to do? Users experiencing issues should restart their Teams clients. 

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? 

• The ability to use @edu.uwaterloo.ca for authentication to University systems/applications will no longer be supported.
• @eduuwaterloo.onmicrosoft.com accounts will be disabled, removing access to old @edu OneDrive accounts. 

When will this change take place? Wednesday, April 28, 2021.

What is the impact? After this date, the only acceptable login for University systems supporting single sign-on will be the individual’s username (up to 8 characters) followed by @uwaterloo.ca. Data associated with old @edu.uwaterloo.ca accounts will not be deleted. Accounts will be locked but can be temporarily unlocked to retrieve data, if necessary.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca. 

What is happening? Exchange servers are being removed from service for maintenance/updates. Individual servers will be taken out of service between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. each night throughout the maintenance period. 

When is this happening? Sunday, April 25 to Thursday, April 29 between 9:00 and 10:00 p.m. each night.

Why is this happening? To patch a known vulnerability in Exchange 2016.

Who will it impact? Users that are actively connected to a server when it is removed for maintenance may be prompted to enter their username and password. Outlook may also alert users about being redirected to autodiscover.uwaterloo.ca. This is normal behaviour, and the user should click 'Allow' when this happens. No other impact is anticipated as the remaining servers will continue to carry out email and calendar functions. This maintenance will not impact mailboxes that are in Office 365.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

Resolved (April 20, 8:42 a.m.): Wireless calls, SMS and data services are now restored for the majority of Rogers and Fido customers. A small number of services with other carriers are continuing to come back online. The service outage was caused by a software update of network equipment that led to intermittent congestion and service impacts for customers across the country.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

Update (April 19, 3:38 p.m.): The Rogers network teams are working diligently to resolve the outage but the issues are still ongoing.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? Some Rogers and Fido wireless customers are experiencing an intermittent service interruption for wireless voice and data services. Rogers is working on restoring these services.

What is the impact? Rogers and Fido customers may be unable to access cellular data and wireless services on their mobile devices. Incoming, outgoing calls, and text messages are impacted nationally.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? Annual licenses for National Instruments Labview purchased before 2021 will expire and stop working on May 1, 2021. Licenses purchased after December 2020 will remain active until April 2022. 

What do users need to do? For uninterrupted access to the software, users who purchased a license before 2021 must renew their Labview license before May 1. If you have already purchased a license in 2021, no action is required.

How to renew: To renew your Labview license, visit the IST Webstore. License renewal is a two-step process: you will need to purchase the new license, then assign the license to a machine.

For graduate students: All graduate student purchasers must obtain permission from the account holder (supervisor/principal investigator) and specify the account holder's user ID in the “Who authorized use of this account” field. 
 
Questions or concerns? Submit a request using the Jira Service Desk Portal.

What is happening? Webex recordings issue that was noted yesterday has been resolved.

Why is this happening? Webex recording service is back to normal operation, any recordings made during this service disruption period and after is safe and will be posted within 24 hours.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

What is happening? Webex recordings may not be saving to the Webex portal as expected. Webex Live Meetings should remain unaffected. IST is investigating with the vendor. 

Why is this happening? A bug was found in the latest Webex updates which prevents Webex recordings from being produced.

Questions or concerns? Please contact the IST Service Desk, helpdesk@uwaterloo.ca or ext. 44357.

Full story originally published April 5, 2021 on Microsoft's Customer Stories website