--- TIC-TECH message:
As we move into the new school year, I wanted to take a minute to update
TIC-Tech members on some of the changes that have happened over the summer,
and what to expect in the new year.
Response to Trouble Reports
---------------
- Handling of trouble calls during the crunch time at start of school will
be prioritized in the following order:
Connectivity or email problems affecting multiple sites or large numbers of
users
Connectivity or email problems affecting one entire site
New and recently relocated schools and programs
Libraries and computer labs
Business ed labs
Levy equipment
Connectivity or email problems affecting individual users
All other issues
Wide-Area Network
-----------------
- As wiring was completed during the summer, a lot of schools are now
connected to the interim wide-area network for the first time, or have moved
from an ISDN connection to a faster T1 connection. More schools will make
the transition during September. A list of the sites will be provided in a
separate mailing in the next couple of days.
- We have added a T1 at Information Services to accommodate the additional
schools and keep bandwidth availability as high as possible.
-Schools will continue to share bandwidth incoming to the central core until
the new fiber network backbone becomes operational. Manny Ovena, the Levy
Project Manager, will be sharing information on the progress of the new
backbone throughout the year. In the interim, we'll be watching the
bandwidth usage on the existing links and trying to balance it to make the
most bandwidth possible available to all schools.
Exchange/Outlook/OWA Email
--------------------------
- Rollout of Exchange/Outlook/OWA email on a school-by-school basis will
resume once the start of school crunch is past
- A new schedule for the school rollouts will be published soon
- In the meantine, we'll continue to work on individual issues (misspelled
names, migration of VAX mail, etc.)
- Those who have had other email accounts, especially cks and vax, and are
moving to Exchange/Outlook/OWA mail should include a notice in their email
signatures warning of their new email addresses. This will smooth the way
for their correspondents when their cks and vax email is no longer
available. (Because of increasing spam, several hacker attacks against cks,
and other technical problems, we'll probably restrict dual email account
availability to 60 days after cutover in the near future. We'll send out
more information as it becomes available.)
Internet Filter
---------------
- Internet filtering is now being provided by three high-speed servers using
a new technology that is much faster than the Linux/Squid based services
being used at the end of last school year.
- If it should be overwhelmed by requests (we don't expect that to happen),
the new system will pass through any additional requests rather than
queueing them for the proxy. This means schools will be able to continue
with their lessons even if higher than expected traffic occurs.
- We also have additional servers on hand that can be added to the filtering
system in a very short time frame if traffic requires it.
- The new system allows much more flexibility in setting up filtering, for
example by profiles based on high school, middle school, or elementary.
We'll be doing some testing to determine how much resource will be needed to
set up and maintain profiles. I'm hopeful that we'll be able to provide
profile-based filtering before long.
New Phone Systems
-----------------
- In addition to getting new T1 data connections, many schools had new phone
systems installed during the summer. Like any new system, a number of these
have experienced problems. We're working with the vendor who installed the
systems to get the problems resolved as quickly as possible.
- Please report telephone problems to Telecommunications at 252-0400.
Information Services will continue to post updates as they become available.
I hope the new school year will be fulfilling and productive for all of us!
Thanks,
Judy
Judy McNamee
Manager, Networking & Computer Operations
Seattle Public Schools
206-252-0306
jmcnamee@seattleschools.org
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This archive was generated by hypermail 2b29 : Mon Sep 03 2001 - 18:04:41 PDT