News

There will be a complete power outage in MC on Saturday, April 26 from 7:00 a.m. to 10:00 am. for a breaker replacement in the main switchboard. The MFCF datacentre in MC 3015 will be completely shut down.  To prepare for this, the affected servers listed below will be shut down on Friday, April 25 starting at 4:30 p.m.

What is affected:

• a subset of servers in each of the linux.math, biglinux.math, fastlinux.math, windows.math, mondo.math, linux.student.math, and windows.student.math pools
• gpu-pt1-01, gpu-pt1-02, gpu-pt1-04, gpu-pr1-01, hpc-pr1-03
• research servers hood, belize3, elbereth, killbill, alatariel, meleth, TSP1, TSP2, barrio1, dumbledore, hagrid, pegasus, bluestem, saspc73
• cemclinux11, cemclinux12
• all office computers
• all office networking, both wired and wireless

What is not affected:

• files.math, files.student.math
• any servers not listed above

Questions?

• please contact the MFCF Help Centre mfcfhlep@uwaterloo.ca

What is happening?

MFCF will be deploying Windows 11 release 24H2 to all systems that meet the system requirements.

MFCF has been testing this release of Windows 11 and we find it very stable for productivity applications (Microsoft 365 apps, Acrobat Pro, internet browsers, etc.)

We have also done basic tests with many mathematical applications (Maple, Matlab, MikTex, Python, R, RStudio).

When is this happening?

March and April 2025

Who is impacted?

Users whose Windows machines are managed with Microsoft Endpoint Manager Configuration Manager (formerly SCCM).

MFCF will be contacting people whose machines need remediation before the upgrade can proceed.

What is the impact?

Windows 11 will be upgraded to release 24H2.  Applications will not be removed or reinstalled.  There are multiple system reboots to apply the upgrade.

What do you need to do?

MFCF recommends people in a department arrange amongst themselves to apply the upgrade at different times so not everyone is adjusting to the changes at the same time.

Applying the upgrade

The upgrade will be available for you to run via the Software Centre (Start > Microsoft Configuration Manager > Software Center > Updates). The upgrade installs and triggers reboots. The upgrade is expected to take 1-2 hours to complete.

We recommend applying the upgrade when you are on campus.  Laptop users on campus need to use the wired connection for the duration of the upgrade.  We highly recommend the laptop be connected to AC power to avoid a drained battery during the upgrade.

The update can be applied by people working on University owned machines at home.  The VPN must be connected to run the upgrade.  The download time depends on the internet connection speed.

Questions or concerns?

Contact Dale Kenter or submit an RT

The print server (print.math.uwaterloo.ca) will be migrated to our new virtualization environment.

Windows 10 will reach its end of life on October 14, 2025.  University owned computers must be running Windows 11 by then.  

The print server updates were completed successfully.

What is happening? The IST-owned centralized RT server (rt.uwaterloo.ca) is being phased out at the end of the term. MFCF will set up and maintain a new RT server (rt.math.uwaterloo.ca) that will contain migrated copies of all tickets from IST's server for MFCF and CSCF queues.

There will be a complete power outage in MC on Sunday December 22.

MFCF has deployed a new L40S GPU server.

New password rules take effect in WatIAM starting November 27.

File server upgrade notice