E-mail, Personal Calendar and Collaboration
March 31, 2006 Update
March 31 Outage
We apologize for today's unexpected e-mail outage. We are continuing to collect debug information.
This information will help our support at Oracle find a fix to the ongoing OCS instability.
Thank you for your patience while we work with Oracle to resolve this problem.
March 24, 2006 Update
The Recent Email Outage
We apologize for the inconvenience caused by today's extended email outage. Due to a hardware failure,
the system was unavailable for several hours while we moved data to backup hardware
and restarted OCS. Although this problem primarily affected the email system, it was not
directly an Oracle or OCS issue - it was caused by a failed data storage system.
We are upgrading our hardware to decrease the possibility of
similar problems in the future. Thank you for your understanding.
November 16 Update
Test OCS 10g system starting
We have started setting up a new test OCS 10g system.
The system is much easier to setup and configure, and has a vastly
improved webmail interface. We will be moving the current installation,
and migrating the Corporate Time calendar system to 10g before the
start of the classes this spring.
August 23 update
Returning Student E-Mail Passwords Reset:
Beginning at 9:00 AM today, and continuing during the
rest of this week,
all returning students' e-mail passwords are being reset in order to
proceed with migration to our new and improved e-mail server. Passwords
will be reset to a new standard format of your username
followed
by the last four digits of your Social Security number. For
example, if there is a student by the name of Sally Jenkins who has a
username of sjenkins and the last four digits of her
Social Security number are 3456, her password will be
set to sjenkins3456. Usernames will remain the same.
We had originally planned to migrate returning students'
e-mail accounts
earlier this summer, but technical issues forced us to wait until all
faculty, staff, and new student accounts were created. In order to
avoid conflicting with the first week of classes, it is critical that
we
accomplish this as soon as our new server is prepared for the migration
- and this has just happened. We regret the unavoidable inconvenience.
August 22 update
Status report - Nearing Completion: The
migration of
faculty and staff e-mail accounts is complete. While there are some
final changes to be made (e.g. Calendaring), the bulk of the move from
our old e-mail system to the new one is done. Thanks to everyone
involved for making this project a big success. We kept to the schedule
as originally announced, and migrated every office and department on
the
day promised. Faculty and staff whose College-owned laptop computers
were away from campus on migration day, you can contact the CIT Help
Desk at x.6525 to schedule an installation of Thunderbird.
Several problems affecting OCS in recent days have also
been
resolved. OCS Webmail is fully operational, no work-arounds needed. In
addition, the following services have now been implemented:
- SSL is now configured for OCS Webmail.
Secure Socket Layer
settings shield our
e-mail system, and your Webmail messages, from many of the attacks
which
constantly seek to exploit weaknesses. Without this layer of
protection, Webmail would be much more vulnerable. The SSL
configuration
includes activating new site certificates, and therefore should also
eliminate the annoying error messages you may have seen about 'invalid
certificates.'
- Web conferencing is now configured for SSL.
Web-based
conferencing through OCS will be operational shortly. When it is, the
same
security defenses now in place for e-mail will protect Web
conferencing.
As we near the end of the switch from Mulberry to OCS,
this page will
be updated less often, and when the switch is complete this page will
become an archive. The goal here was to keep the community informed
about the selection and migration process, not to supplant our regular
venues for outreach and communication (such as the Information Services
column of the Bulletin
and the Notification-L distribution
list). You will still be able to access all relevant documentation and
other information. Most especially, we hear you about the popularity of
the 'traffic light' system status indicator (found in the upper
left-hand
corner of this page). We will keep this indicator up and running,
although
we will likely move it to a different Web page. Keep your eye on the
traffic light and watch this space for more information.
August 12 update
OCS Web Mail Workaround: We understand
the serious inconvenience to off-campus employees and
students posed by the Oracle Collaboration Suite's Web Mail downtime.
(As noted, Thunderbird is not affected, and is working normally.) While
it is critical that needed security measures be completed, a workaround
is in place for those who have no alternative.
If you go to http://ocs.macalester.edu/,
you will see an error message
describing the maintenance being performed. There is a link within that
message that permits access to OCS; click on the second part of the
second sentence, beginning with "access your OCS webmail directly
through this link." As the text warns, this workaround may be
unavailable intermittently as the security work continues.
If you do not see the OCS System Maintenance message
page, you may need to clear your browser's cache. [instructions here]
We are working to finish
the security configuration and put OCS into full operation
as quickly as possible. Please share this information with
anyone you know who is having difficulty with OCS Web mail.
August 11 update
OCS Web Mail Downtime: Oracle
Collaboration Suite Webmail has been taken down so that critical (and
complex) security settings can be fully enabled. Thunderbird is not
affected, and is working normally. This security configuration could
not be performed until after most other aspects of the OCS installation
were completed - and it absolutely must be finished before classes
begin. Given the state of today's Internet, the security settings now
being erected will protect College e-mail traffic from a wide variety
of attacks and threats. While highly inconvenient, particularly to
those Macalester individuals who are off campus, the downtime is the
lesser of two evils.
Network staff are working very hard to finish these
security measures. OCS will be brought back up as soon as possible once
the security is fully in place. You may check OCS status and get the
latest word on this Web page: http://www.macalester.edu/email/
We are sorry for the inconvenience and we ask for your understanding.
Please pass this information along whenever possible to
colleagues who are away from campus, since they may have no other
e-mail access than OCS (and therefore won't see this message).
August 9 update
Calendar Migration Delay: The calendar
migration has been delayed and will not take place on Wednesday, August
10th. This means that nothing will change regarding calendar access and
Corporate Time. During testing an unexpected error arose with Palm
syncing, and in order to avoid interrupted service, we are forced to
delay the migration until the problem can be resolved. Watch this space
for updates. We apologize for the inconvenience.
August 4 update
Calendar Migration Reminder and Update:
Next Wednesday, August 10th, we will be migrating Calendar data over to
the new Calendaring system, Oracle Collaboration Suite (OCS).
Our test migrations have gone well, but this type of
migration is somewhat uncharted waters, so there may be unexpected
difficulties. Let me assure you that no data will be lost and there
will be no long term down-times. We are fully aware of how important
Corporate Time is to some of our users and are making every effort to
make this migration as smoothly as possible. If there are serious
difficulties with the migration, we will simply revert back to the
current Calendaring server.
In order to use your Oracle Calendar after the
migration, you can log into OCS at http://ocs.macalester.edu,
and click on Calendar. You can also access it through Corporate Time,
but you will need to install the latest Corporate Time client. Those
who are using Palms to sync with the current calendar will need to
install new Palm software as well. No passwords will be reset as part
of the calendar migration, so you may log in with your Novell password
as you do currently.
Instructions and updates will be available at
http://www.macalester.edu/email/calendar
July 25 update
Calendar migration scheduled: The email
migration process also includes the migration of our calendaring system
to the Oracle Collaboration Suite. We have scheduled the Calendar
migration for Wednesday, August 10th. On that day, all the information
in the current Calendaring system will be moved to the new server. The
new system will require a new client or palm software to access it.
Details will be announced in the upcoming weeks.
July 21 update
Milestone: The e-mail migration project
continues smoothly, and over two-thirds of Macalester Faculty and Staff
have been successfully migrated. If all continues to go smoothly, we
will have everyone on the new system by August 11th. Thank you for your
cooperation in making this upgrade as effective and painless as
possible.
July 20 update
Increase in E-mail Quota size: E-mail
quotas on the new server will be increased to 500 MB. This amount is
for your entire mail, and there will be no limits on individual
folders, so that you may organize your mail however you choose as long
as the total size of all messages does not exceed 500 MB.
July 19 update
Increase in E-mail Attachment size: The
size of an e-mail attachment you may send/receive at Macalester has
been increased to 20 MB. This is double the former size limit of 10 MB.
July 18 update
Intermittent E-Mail Outages: Setting up
a new e-mail system requires a great deal of fine-tuning and
configuration. Frequently these modifications require us to restart the
the system, which results in brief service outages. In general we try
to do these restarts at the end of the day to cause the least
inconvenience. However, in order to get the new system up and running
in time, we sometimes cannot wait to perform the restart. Thus there
will be a higher than usual number of short-term service outages in the
next few weeks while we finish setting up the new system. We regret any
difficulties this may cause you, and we will strive to keep the outages
as infrequent as we can. The current status of the new system is
available in the upper-left corner of this page.
July 12 update
Reply function in OCS fixed: The reply
function in OCS webmail is working properly again.
July 11 update
Thunderbird and Mac OS 9 : For those
who are still using computers with Macintosh OS 9, there's something
you need to know. Once you've been migrated, there are two methods
available to access the new e-mail system. The first is OCS webmail,
which is available online at http://ocs.macalester.edu. This will be
the primary access method for general users. Faculty and staff will
also have access to the new, supported native client: Mozilla
Thunderbird. However, Thunderbird is only available for Windows XP and
98, and Macintosh OS X. There is no Thunderbird for Mac OS 9. What this
means is that our Tiger Teams will not be installing Thunderbird on
computers running OS 9 (because they can't), and OS 9 users will have
access to e-mail through webmail only.
July 6 update
Reply function in OCS down: Currently
many users are experiencing an error in OCS webmail in which clicking
the reply button results in an error page. This is a phantom problem in
the server cache and we are working to rememedy it. In the meantime
however, OCS webmail users will have to compose a new message and copy
the address and text in order to send a reply.
June 21 updates
How to change passwords with the new system:
In order to transfer your mail to the new system, your password will
automatically be reset to your username plus the last four digits of
your Social Security number (example: smith1234). You are encouraged to
change your reset password to something of your own choosing. [ Changing
OCS and Novell Passwords ] Remember, your mail will be transferred
to the new system on the date scheduled for your department.
We've chosen a new e-mail and calendaring system!
Oracle Collaboration Suite and Thunderbird are it! Read about the many new features...
When are we changing? See the 'Faculty and Staff' and
'Students' links below.
How does this affect
me? Your e-mail, address books and
other data will be moved for you to the new server. Read more...
What do I need to do? Nothing right now. CIT will
be doing most of the work for you. Read more...
Will my e-mail be
deleted? No. What
about my address books? Read the FAQ.
What about
calendaring (Corporate Time)?
Read the Calendar section
of the FAQ.
Faculty and Staff: We have a
planned deployment schedule.
Find out when your department is to be migrated here.
Students: Student e-mail will be
migrated to the new system during the summer. Read more...
»» Frequently
Asked Questions (FAQ)
|
Spam Statistics
Documentation