Purpose
The IIT team is committed to ensuring reliable information technology services. In order to meet this objective, systems may need to be taken offline to maintain or improve system performance, safeguard data, or to respond to emergency situations.
The goal of this procedure is to explain those circumstances during which downtime may occur, anticipated durations of downtime events, and procedures for notifying affected users.
In an effort to lessen the impact on students, a downtime for all systems will be held on the second and fourth Friday of each month starting at 5:00 p.m. During these downtimes:
- Systems impacting classroom instruction will be coordinated to minimize disruption.
- Student access to Canvas & Email will be available via link when accessing MyAACC.
- Ellucian Colleague will only be down once a month.
- Colleague Related Services could be unavailable twice a month.
For planning purposes, customers should not expect to have access to the college’s computer systems during these downtime periods. IIT will reschedule any downtime that coincides with a major college event, such as final exams.
Scope
|
Downtime
|
Purpose
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When are customers notified?
|
How are customers
notified?
|
Exceptions/Notes
|
|
2nd Friday of each Month,
5:00 pm – 2:00 am
|
Routine maintenance of systems impacting faculty, staff and
students and Ellucian Colleague
|
Standard downtime
|
MyAACC
Announcement
|
Will be rescheduled if major college event
|
|
4th Friday of each month
5:00 – 2:00 am
|
Routine maintenance of systems
impacting faculty, and staff
|
Standard downtime
|
MyAACC
Announcement
|
Will be rescheduled if major college event
|
|
Unplanned
|
Immediate security patches for serious vulnerabilities
|
Lead time may be less than twenty- four hours
|
Email to college community
|
Infrequent
|
Exemptions
There may be occasional instances where, for security purposes, computer systems need to be taken off line at times other than the above schedule. In these instances, IIT will give the college community an estimate of the amount of time the system or systems will be down as well as the maximum amount of lead time possible. Due to the methodology by which the college IIT notified by the vendor, the lead-time may be less than twenty-four hours. This type of system outage may occur once or twice a year. It occurs when Microsoft or our anti-virus vendor alerts us of a serious vulnerability recently discovered in a software or hardware product. The downtime allows IIT to apply the security patch to mitigate the issue.
There may be still other instances where one or more computer systems need to be off line for an extended period. These extended periods are defined as periods wherein systems will be unavailable for days. These instances involve major upgrades to college computer systems. Some examples are upgrading the college electronic mail system, portal, learning management or student and management information systems. IIT will notify the college community by December 15th if we believe we will need downtime over the upcoming spring break. The spring break downtime shall be the first three days of spring break. While a customer may have access to some computer systems during these times, for planning purposes customers should not expect to have access to the college’s computer systems during these periods.
IIT recognizes that computer system downtime has a deleterious effect on instruction and college business. In all instances, IIT will have the systems down for the shortest period of time needed to test and implement the change.
Contingencies
None
Review Process
Information Technology Requirements will be reviewed every 12 months, or sooner if required. Guidelines and Processes will be reviewed every 24 months, or sooner if required.
References
- Owner: Vice-President, Information and Instructional Technology
- Administrator: Director, Information Security and Infrastructure
- Contact Information: Mike Rees, marees@aacc.edu
- Last Reviewed: December 2024