VPIT Status and Activity Report For September 2019

Vice President for Information Technology
Status and Activity Report for September 2019
Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT)
1. Items Requiring Action
• Be vigilant to ransomware risks: In recent weeks, several state agencies in

Georgia, as well as governmental agencies and municipalities across the United
States, have been affected by a growing number of successful “ransomware” cyber-
attacks. Public higher education remains a top target for cyber-attackers who
attempt to disrupt our operations and steal our intellectual property by subverting
our processes, people, and technology. These ransomware attacks lock critical
data, applications, and equipment until the victim makes a large ransom payment.
These attacks often result in significant disruption and impacts on affected
individuals and organizations. Students, faculty and staff should remain vigilant
about potential threats. Remember to back up critical systems and data; stop and
think before opening email attachments or clicking on links; always have strong
passwords and use multi-factor authentication; and report suspicious events
immediately. For more security tools and tips, visit infosec.uga.edu.
• Strategic plan development under way: The VPIT has convened a committee to
draft a University strategic plan for information technology. Chaired by Dean
Charles Davis and Associate Provost Toby Graham, an advisory committee
consisting of faculty, staff, and student representatives from across campus will
begin meeting in September to help the VPIT develop a set of strategic goals that
are comprehensive and supportive of the larger UGA strategic plan. Campus
engagement may be requested throughout the fall as the committee works to draft
a plan by February of next year. For more information, contact Stacy Boyles
at stacy.boyles@uga.edu.
• Update older OneDrive for Business desktop clients: Beginning in fall 2019, co-
authoring abilities will no longer be available for users accessing files through
older versions of the OneDrive for Business desktop sync client. This will not affect
Sharepoint or the OneDrive for Business web client. Students, faculty and staff
using older versions of the OneDrive for Business desktop client should update to
the latest version of the OneDrive client, or access their files via the OneDrive web
client. You can find out which version of OneDrive you have and if you need to
update by visiting Microsoft’s website. You can also download the updated sync
client on Microsoft’s website. For more information, please contact Ashley Henry
at ashenry@uga.edu.
2. For Your Awareness
• Core network maintenance scheduled for September 28: On September 28, EITS
will be performing a core network maintenance. This maintenance will be two-
fold. First, we will be installing the new core and aggregation routers for the UGA
VPIT Status and Activity Report for September 2019 Page 1 of 4

network. The second part of the maintenance will be to interconnect the new
routers with the existing infrastructure. We are expecting these changes to be non-
impactful to the University community and we expect the maintenance window to
be approximately 6 hours long starting at midnight on Saturday. EITS will also be
having an October maintenance. This maintenance will be to reconfigure the
Internet border routers and the Internet border firewalls. The expected date of this
maintenance is forthcoming. For more information contact Jeff Farese,
jeffrey.farese@uga.edu.
• Athena, Campus Logic to transition to UGA SSO: In October, several UGA

systems will transition to using our new production CAS environment, UGA SSO.
This means the login screen will look different. Athena, the student information
system, and Campus Logic,will transition October 12. Content 7 will transition
October 31. Users will still log in with their MyID and password for all these
systems. ArchPass will also still be required to complete the login process for
Athena. More information about UGA SSO, as well as a screenshot of the login
page can be found at https://eits.uga.edu/access_and_security/uga_sso/.
• LinkedIn Learning replaces Lynda.com: On August 5, UGA’s instance of

Lynda.com transitioned to LinkedIn Learning. With LinkedIn Learning you can
access all your playlists, previously viewed content and other material from
Lynda.com. The login process has not changed, and you will still log in by visiting
Lynda.uga.edu. Faculty and Staff who have integrated Lynda.com content into
their curriculum will need to change links to reflect the new URLs associated with
LinkedIn Learning. For additional information about this transition, including
links to log in, please visit lynda.uga.edu.
• New look for sharing documents in email: Microsoft is updating how you share
cloud docs from OneDrive and Sharepoint via email. When you paste a link for a
OneDrive or Sharepoint file into a message, Outlook will replace the link with the
name of the file and the corresponding Office app icon. For example, a Word file
would show the file name and the Word icon. You will also be able to manage
permissions for the file using a new sharing dialogue. This new feature should be
available for Outlook web and desktop clients by the end of September. For more
information, please contact Ashley Henry at ashenry@uga.edu.
• Increased email storage available in UGAMail: UGA students, faculty and staff
now have more storage available in their UGAMail. The available storage per user
has doubled from 50GB to 100GB, effective July 28. This equates to about 1
million additional emails without attachments; the average email size is less than
50 KB. The increased storage is part of licensing changes for Office 365. The
increased storage is not available for affiliate or retiree UGAMail accounts. For
more information, please contact Ashley Henry at ashenry@uga.edu.
• Forum on transitioning to upgraded Single Sign-on environment set for

September 9: A new production CAS environment, called UGA SSO, is now
available. All applications using the legacy version of University’s authentication

service (CAS, CAS2, LDS, IDP) are required to transition to the updated
authentication service by March 6, 2020. EITS will host an online-only Q&A
forum for application owners from 2 to 3 p.m. on September 9. During the forum,
EITS representatives will discuss the process for transitioning applications,
responsibilities of application owners and answer any questions. Application
owners can join the forum using the following link:
https://sas.elluminate.com/m.jnlp?sid=2013048&password=M.DFAE889F3898D
4240E2C50E51E6777. The update to UGA SSO provides improved authentication
connections, better security, as well as the ability to use two-factor
authentication. Application owners should plan for about eight weeks to transition
an application. More information about the transition, including templates for
project and test plans, is available
at https://eits.uga.edu/access_and_security/uga_sso/. More technical
information surrounding authentication protocols and authentication flow is
available athttps://confluence.eits.uga.edu/display/HDSH/Authentication . For
more information, contact Shannon Marable at shannon.marable@uga.edu.
• Update iOS devices to continue using Outlook: Beginning in September, iPhone

users who do not update to iOS 11 or higher will no longer be able to use Outlook
for iOS to sync their email or calendar data. The older clients lack the ability to
connect using Microsoft Sync Technology, which is now required for Office 365
and Outlook.com accounts. To fix this problem, users need to update their devices
to iOS 11 or higher. For the best experience, Microsoft recommends that users
upgrade to the latest version of iOS (12.4). For more information on the latest
version of iOS, visit https://support.apple.com/en-us/HT201222. If you have any
questions or concerns, please contact Ashley Henry at ashenry@uga.edu.
3. Support for Researchers
• GACRC Sapelo2 expansion: Over the summer, the Georgia Advanced Computing
Resource Center (GACRC) team expanded the compute capabilities of the Sapelo2
cluster with general-purpose compute nodes and high-memory nodes purchased
from Dell. These 60 new nodes added 2,048 compute cores and over 15TeraBytes
of memory to Sapelo2. The Sapelo2 expansion was made possible through funding
from the Office of Research and EITS. Please contact Dr. Guy Cormier
at gcormier@uga.edu for more information.
4. OneSource
• Campaign for Charities link available on OneUSG Connect: UGA’s Campaign for
Charities is transitioning to OneUSG Connect’s State Charitable Contributions
Program. You may have seen a new tile in the fluid interface of OneUSG Connect
for this functionality. This new functionality will not replace the historical paper
form. Instead, you will have the option to use either the online functionality in
OneUSG Connect or the paper form. The tile will be activated for campus use when
UGA’s Campaign for Charities kicks off this fall. Questions should be sent
to oneusgsupport@uga.edu.
5. Technology Tips
• Find software you need at software.uga.edu: On May 1, EITS launched a new

software website. The site showcases the free or discounted software available to
all eligible UGA students, faculty and staff, such as Adobe Creative Cloud,
Microsoft Pro Plus, MATLAB, SPSS, Qualtrics, Zoom and more. Software.uga.edu
is run by Contracts and Licensing, a unit of EITS. If you have any questions, or
would like to request that a certain software be added for use, please contact Bret
Jamieson at bret.jamieson@uga.edu.
• Volunteers needed for I.T. Fair: EITS is hosting the annual I.T. Fair, formerly
known as the Computer Health and Security Fair, in late October. During the
event, volunteers will assist attendees in conducting self-service functions like
setting up their MyID Profile, enrolling a primary, secondary or back-up device in
ArchPass, how to sync mailboxes, how to download the Duo app and get codes
from the app, and more. The event is free and open to all UGA students, faculty
and staff. This year’s fair will be on Tuesday, October 29, and Wednesday, October
30, from 10:00 a.m. to 3:00 p.m. If you would like to volunteer, or know someone
who might be interested, please contact Kathryn White at skathryn@uga.edu.
University of Georgia students, faculty, and staff, as well as interested others, may
subscribe to this monthly report by sending an email to listserv@listserv.uga.edu with
the phrase subscribe vpit-news as the body of the message.

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Vice President for Information Technology

Status and Activity Report for September 2019

Prepared by Timothy M. Chester, Vice President for Information Technology (VPIT)

1. Items Requiring Action

• Be vigilant to ransomware risks: In recent weeks, several state agencies in

2. For Your Awareness

VPIT Status and Activity Report for September 2019 Page 1 of 4

• Athena, Campus Logic to transition to UGA SSO: In October, several UGA

• LinkedIn Learning replaces Lynda.com: On August 5, UGA’s instance of

• Forum on transitioning to upgraded Single Sign-on environment set for

VPIT Status and Activity Report for September 2019 Page 2 of 4

• Update iOS devices to continue using Outlook: Beginning in September, iPhone

3. Support for Researchers

• Find software you need at software.uga.edu: On May 1, EITS launched a new

VPIT Status and Activity Report for September 2019 Page 4 of 4

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