Last year, Michigan IT News reported that ITS and HITS were doing away with uniqnames and re-implementing Computing Center IDs (CCIDs): All access to computing resources will be via CCIDs, the 4-character mainframe login ID. More details on the transition from uniqname to CCID will be announced in a future issue of this newsletter. The future is now! Work… Read More »
Catch up on the latest feature updates and changes to the U-M Box and Google services.
Over 60 university community members attended the Web Platforms Service Town Hall on March 7 at Palmer Commons. The presentation reflected feedback received during meetings and interactions held over the past year and a half. Town hall participants shared further ideas verbally and using the Poll Everywhere app. The service project team is reviewing the latest feedback and… Read More »
This month is all about parking…U-M faculty, students and staff will now begin to see improved WiFi coverage in several parking structures around campus. Students at Northwood apartments are seeing improvements in their WiFi, and work also continues on buildings that play an important role in supporting operations for the U-M campus. Check out our current progress. Recently… Read More »
The M-Pathways Student Administration upgrade is in full swing with an expected go-live date of May 21, 2018. This upgrade brings a review of processes, an opportunity for future advancements to meet the needs of our students and faculty, and updated training and support. Additionally, it positions U-M to better leverage future enhancements from the vendor and… Read More »
Michigan Medicine recently achieved a significant goal of ensuring that 100 percent of all devices connecting to its internal network by wire are accounted for, categorized by device type, and secured with the necessary protocols required to protect two-way communication from cyberattacks. A program to enhance network security and identify all electronic equipment connecting to Michigan Medicine internal resources… Read More »
Here’s what’s new in the March 15 ServiceLink upgrade: ServiceLink mobile app enhancements We are excited to share changes in the mobile app with you. The app has been available in an unmanaged format, which has made it difficult to use. With this release we’ve updated the interface and added the features below. A screen for all ServiceLink… Read More »
The Michigan App has been available for limited beta for a little over two months. The development team took that feedback from testers and has now launched the public beta to all U-M staff, faculty, and students. The new app features a completely redesigned interface that helps streamline daily activities and supports success towards academic and personal goals for… Read More »
Research labs and teams sometimes spend a large amount of sponsored grant funding on data storage and computing resources. Researchers often have to choose between data safety and saving money, resulting in decreased productivity, and time wasted on data recovery. Beginning March 5, 2018, Health Information Technology & Services (HITS), in partnership with Advanced Research Computing – Technology Services (ARC-TS),… Read More »
Catch up on the latest feature updates and changes to the U-M Box and Google services.
ITS is testing a change to “MWireless”—most devices stay connected using the mainstream 5GHz frequency, but older devices that only support 2.4GHz WiFi must connect to “eduroam”
In early February, ITS retired its oldest running production system—the Uniqname Service (UNS). Implemented in 1992, UNS was running on outdated hardware with an old homegrown “UMCE Linux” operating system. Due to high risk, the system had not been shut down or upgraded since 2012. “We were concerned about the fragility and technical debt associated with the homegrown… Read More »
In the last few months Information & Technology Services (ITS) has announced several enhancements to its cloud offerings to the U-M campus. One of these enhancements was the execution of a new Enterprise Agreement and Business Associate Agreement (BAA) with Amazon for AWS at U-M. With this agreement, faculty, researchers, and staff at all U-M campuses can now… Read More »
The project hit an important milestone last month, as we went over the 12 million square foot mark of building space upgraded. Work continues on buildings that play an important role in supporting operations for the U-M campus. Check out our current progress. Recently completed: Wolverine Tower, 305 W. Liberty, Weidenbach Hall Currently under construction: Varsity Drive Building,… Read More »
This past year, UM-Flint ITS began a push to overhaul and upgrade the wireless network on the Flint campus. The wireless infrastructure upgrade entered phase one as the equipment purchased in 2010 has finally reached the end of life and end of support stage. Phase one of the project included all university-owned buildings south of the Flint River,… Read More »
MyUofMHealth, also known as the U-M patient portal, empowers patients to take an active role in their care by providing access to key components of their medical record, while also allowing them to communicate with their care team(s). The feedback from patients on the efficacy of this tool has been wholly positive. A U-M heart transplant patient praised… Read More »
The Andrew File System (AFS)—a central file storage, sharing, and retrieval system that U-M websites rely on—will be relocated to new data center on February 24.
After over a year in development and testing in collaboration with the UM-Ann Arbor ITS Identity and Access Management team, UM-Flint ITS completed a project designed to synchronize employees’ UMICH passwords to their Flint LAN accounts. This project has reduced the number of passwords UM-Flint employees need to remember and increased the time between password changes to one… Read More »
You can deploy Passwordstate in your unit under a U-M license that covers use by U-M faculty, staff, and students on all U-M campuses. Passwordstate allows teams of people to access and share sensitive password resources and is typically used for managing elevated and administrative passwords, as well as passwords for smaller proprietary systems, such as research databases.… Read More »
The CA/Browser Forum is a group of SSL certificate authorities and web-browser developers who work to set standards for SSL encryption. A new CABforum rule going into effect March 1, 2018 will shorten the maximum lifetime of SSL certificates from all commercial certificate authorities. After that time, certificates obtained via the ITS “Web Application Sign-up Page” can have… Read More »