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16 Nov 06 Network Infrastructure Support

Effective November 14, 2006, ALA is moving to a managed service partnership to support our network infrastructure. This will improve delivery of services to our customers, both internal and external. Managed services gives us 24/7 access to an array of expertise for our day to day operations, and additional knowledge to address any issues that arise.

Many organizations are moving to outside managed services where the vendor provides trained consultants who provide a wide range of technical skills capable of handling all our current and future network infrastructure needs.

13 Nov 06 Firewall Upgrade

Our upgraded Firewall is in place and working. It’s a CISCO 5520 Adaptive Security Appliance (ASA). The ASA represents an improved technology over our previous firewall. It has the ability to recognize types of threatening behavior in addition to restricting the types of communication it allows through.

The installation began just after 9:00 am Saturday, and services were restored by 11:00 am. Web services were interrupted during that period, including email. Email began coming in around 10:15. None should have been lost.

If you’d like to know more about the ASA, you can read the CISCO product brochure:

http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps6120/c1031/cdccont_0900aecd80285492.pdf

For a very favorable technical review of the ASA (the testing was sponsored by CISCO), see:
http://www.cisco.com/application/pdf/en/us/guest/products/ps6120/c1244/cdccont_0900aecd80350d4e.pdf

07 Nov 06 Firewall Installation 11/11/06 9:00 a.m.

The installation of the new firewall has been scheduled for Saturday, November 11, 2006, beginning at 9:00 a.m.

While we do not expect any interruptions to our services, this installation will require firewall rule changes recommended by our security consultants that will affect all network communications. We will keep you updated via email and this blog as events warrant.

31 Oct 06 New Firewall Installation

As part of our ongoing program to improve network security and uptime, we will be installing a new firewall soon, possibly later this week. We will in fact be installing two new firewalls, in order to provide fail-over redundancy. The new firewall was already planned for this fiscal year, but has been moved up on the recommendation of our security consultants.

While we do not expect any interruptions to our services, this installation will require firewall rule changes recommended by our security consultants that will affect all network communications. We will schedule this installation for early morning or over a weekend to minimize any potential disruption. We will keep you updated via email and the ITTS Update blog (http://blogs.ala.org/ittsupdate.php) as events warrant.

31 Oct 06 WebCT Updates – October 2006

No change.

31 Oct 06 Spacemaster Updates – October 2006

A critical piece of communications equipment for this project failed in October and is being rebuilt. Until that process is complete, we will be unable to proceed with the SpaceMaster implementation.

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28 Sep 06 WebCT Updates – September 2006

No change.

28 Sep 06 SpaceMaster Updates – September 2006

Now that the iMIS upgrade is complete, work on the SpaceMaster project will resume.

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05 Sep 06 Spacemaster Updates – May 2006

May 2006

SpaceMaster is working on the conversion. We are waiting for SpaceMaster to get back to us with status.

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05 Sep 06 Spacemaster Updates – June/July 2006

June/July 2006

Spacemaster ad software is ready to be installed. We anticipate this will happen in the next few weeks, but are dependent on a successful conversion to the new software release.

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