IT Services will perform maintenance and implement changes in the computing environment between March 25 and March 29 (during the week of Spring Break). This week is traditionally a time when demands on systems are lower, reducing the risk that students, faculty, or staff will be inconvenienced by the outages and disruptions that this work may cause.

Please bookmark MiamiOH.edu/ITStatus for real-time notifications of any disruptions that may occur during these maintenance windows. Also: Please note that this list is not exhaustive and may change, so check back here regularly for updates. We will update this list if the schedule changes, or if more information becomes available.

If you have any questions about any of this work, please contact IT Help at 513-529-7900 or MiamiOH.edu/ITChat. To view the full calendar of planned IT activities and the current status of major systems and services, please visit our dashboard at MiamiOH.edu/ITStatus.

Here are some of the activities that we will be doing during this time:

New password management platform

The time has come to finally update our identity and access management system here at Miami. Around 10 a.m. on March 28, we will be enabling our new identity governance and administration (IGA) platform.

What this essentially means for you is that Miami’s password tools will look a little different from what you’re used to seeing. We do not expect there to be any changes to how you log in or how you access Miami resources.

Aside from the replacement of the password tools, the best thing about this platform is that when we have done our jobs correctly, you will not notice it is working. The IGA is truly the “behind the scenes” management of identities, access, and support for those things. It will simply work.

The launch of this platform is the culmination of years’ worth of work for teams in IT Services and partners around Miami. It’s a huge step toward a modern identity management system, and we’re excited to share it with you.

We’re eager for the launch of RapidIdentity at Miami, and we hope you are too. This is the first step – much more to come in future months. For more information please visit our website at MiamiOH.edu/IAM.

And remember: You can’t spell Miami without IAM.

Quarterly Oracle grid patching

On Thursday, March 28, starting at 5 p.m. EST, IT Services will be installing the March 2024 quarterly Oracle security patches to the production Oracle grid infrastructure (specifically on the databases that are on 19c).

These patches will typically be installed in a rolling fashion; one Oracle Grid node at a time. This means the supported databases will not be completely down, and services will be available since they all have multiple instances (except for IAPROD -- see below). However, users may need to log back into their sessions after the upgrade (as some applications don’t handle failover well).

Note on IAPROD: This database only has one instance. Therefore, during the installation of the patch on this server, there will be a full outage. It will take around 20 minutes. Please be sure to save your work.

These patches are estimated to take about 60 to 90 minutes to install on each node. AppWorx will be disabled for the duration of the upgrade.

We recommend that you validate your applications thoroughly after patching and notify duit-dba@MiamiOH.edu immediately of any issues. For a full list of databases that will be impacted by this change, please see the list below:

List of 19c databases that will be impacted by this change

Our Oracle environment contains a significant amount of personally identifiable information about members of our community, and installing patches in a timely fashion helps us ensure that we are taking the appropriate steps to properly safeguard that information.

Networking (Wi-Fi and hardwired internet) changes

Our network services team is gearing up to accomplish quite a few upgrades during Spring Break week, most of which will be transparent to the Miami community thanks to a robust and redundant infrastructure. Here are some key networking changes to consider:

Wi-Fi maintenance

Wednesday, March 27, at 7 a.m. EST, the MU-Wireless Wi-Fi network on all Miami campuses will experience a momentary disruption as access points are re-configured. This work will help ensure stability of the Wi-Fi network and also will help us get ready for the Fall 2024 semester – it seems like it’s far away, but really it’s right around the corner!

Data center upgrades

The data center firewall will be undergoing an upgrade to the latest software version. This will take place from 6 a.m. to 7 a.m. EST on Monday, March 25. We’re not expecting any disruptions from this work.

Regional network maintenance

The Hamilton, Middletown, and Voice of America campuses will be undergoing network upgrades on Saturday, March 23 from 8 a.m. to 2 p.m. Please be aware that there could be disruptions of up to 30 minutes on the regional campuses during this maintenance window.

VPN hardware upgrade

Tuesday, March 26, at 6 a.m. EST, the hardware that provides service for MUVPN will be upgraded. At this time, there will be a disruption of five to 10 minutes where you will be unable to connect to the VPN. In addition, if you are currently connected to the VPN, you will be disconnected. If this happens, please wait 10 minutes and then try to access the VPN again.