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cartoon firewall

Information Technology Services will update and test campus firewalls from 6 to 7 a.m. Tuesday, June 26.

The update contains enhancements that will allow the University to leverage additional capabilities of the firewalls, but it will disable Blackboard for two hours — from 5:30 to 7:30 a.m.

Services using the UwinCARD will also be affected, including Food Services, GoPrint, vending machines and laundry in Residence. VPN connections may be unstable during the testing as well.

Direct any concerns about this process to the ServiceDesk at 519-253-3000, ext. 4440.

Michael Akpata, Rob Aitkens, Marcin Pulcer

Campus Technology Day — Thursday, June 7, in the CAW Student Centre — brought together more than 200 faculty, staff, and students to exchange ideas about the use of technology on campus.

“Sharing is always good,” said Marcin Pulcer, program co-ordinator for the one-day conference. “There are so many areas of expertise on campus. You need to come together or it’s all just so much Swiss cheese.”

Among the day’s highlights was a keynote address by UWindsor alumnus Michael Akpata (BA 1989), team lead for public safety, investigations, and counterfraud for IBM Canada. His presentation, “Cyber-attacks and ransomware: Are you prepared for fifth dimensional warfare?” focused on the human element of network security.

“It was super engaging and more than a little alarming,” Pulcer said. “I think a lot of people walked out of the room with plenty to consider.”

With a theme of “Taking U Forward,” that day’s activities also included sessions on research data management, making public computing more efficient, and the UWinsite enterprise resource planning system.

computer screen reading "technology"

With a theme of “Taking U Forward,” Campus Technology Day will include interactive presentations discussing the impact of technology in enhancing learning, teaching, research, and building community on Thursday, June 7, in the CAW Student Centre.

In addition to a keynote address by Michael Akpata on “Cyber-attacks and Ransomware,” the conference will feature sessions on research, Office 365, Blackboard, and the new enterprise resource planning solution: UWinsite.

Register by noon on Wednesday, June 6, to attend the action-packed event. Find a full conference agenda and online registration form at uwindsor.ca/ctd.

toy workers digging up keyboard

Information Technology Services staff continue will wrap up maintenance activities this week which have resulted in early-morning outages of some systems.

IT Services has employed the daily service windows, 6 to 8 a.m., to perform maintenance and make required system configuration changes. So far, the team has been able to meet its target of restoring access by 8 a.m. each day, reports lead hand Kevin Macnaughton.

Still outstanding are upgrades to:

  • Networks across campus, May 3
  • Wireless networks across campus, May 3
  • Networks in the Leddy Library, May 4
  • Cross-campus firewall security, May 4

Macnaughton anticipates these processes should also be completed by 8 a.m. each day.

In addition, the server team will reboot the University’s internet connection sometime between 5:30 and 6 a.m. on Friday, May 4. The move is required after an upgrade to software outside the firewall. It will result in an outage of Internet service for about five minutes — 15 minutes in a worst-case scenario, says Macnaughton.

Direct any concerns about this process to the ServiceDesk at 519-253-3000, ext. 4440.