2008-12-30 PowerSchool planned outage 12/31-1/2

PowerSchool will be unavailable beginning at 5:00 AM on December 31 for an upgrade to version 5.2.1. Although it is difficult to predict the duration of the upgrade process, we anticipate the outage will last through January 1, and possibly January 2.

This upgrade provides updated state reporting capabilities, ODBC access to custom fields, improved performance, and a new Oracle database backend.

Thank you for your patience.

2008-12-29 PowerSchool is back online

Early this morning, PowerSchool came back online after four days of processing database schema updates required for the upgrade to version 5.1.3.

(Tips of the hat to Mike Way of CESA 5 support who worked on this over break, including Christmas Eve, Christmas Day, and the weekend, and to Chris Brown for his preliminary testing and ongoing support.)

The schema update should not have taken that long (even though Chris told us to expect that it would); PS Support is investigating the cause.

The server is now at version 5.1.3. Our hope was to be fully upgraded to 5.2.1 by the end of break, so we are evaluating options and tentatively planning to perform the upgrade on New Year's Eve and New Year's Day. Another post will confirm any planned downtime for the additional upgrade.

Thanks for your patience.

2008-12-24 PowerSchool unavailable through Dec.26

The PowerSchool upgrade is taking significantly longer than expected. Pearson tech support has escalated it to engineering. The upgrade process will continue today and tomorrow (12/24 - 12/25) and hopefully be completed by late in the day on 12/26.
At this point, it's difficult to give an accurate ETA for completion, but it will be unavailable at least through the 26th.

Check back here for more details.

2008-12-19 PowerSchool planned outage Dec. 22-24

Update: The upgrade is taking longer than originally anticipated. The outage is now scheduled to last through December 24. A new ETA for resumption of service will be posted when we have more information. Sorry for the inconvenience.
----------
PowerSchool will be unavailable on December 22-24 for an upgrade to the latest version. This is necessary in order to receive current state reports. Additionally, it upgrades the database engine to Oracle and makes schema changes to improve speed and allow ODBC queries of custom data fields.

2008-12-18 Viruses in email, and IE security risks

Every holiday brings a new rash of viruses because people are more careless during the holidays. Three have hit us today- attachments to email messages claiming to be a Hallmark e-card for you, or a coupon for McDonald's, or a coupon for Coca-cola.

These are all meant to trick you into opening the attachment, which you should never do. 

2008-12-18 Panther server issues update

Panther did not experience the expected slowdown during third hour today. We have noticed a pattern of Thursdays not having the same slow performance as other days. Additionally, it was noted that today the Desktop Publishing Class did not log in, which may be correlated. We are investigating whether the DTP applications are running locally, as they should, or from the server, which would be bad.

2008-12-16 Panther server continued sluggishness

2008-12-16
Panther server for OHS continues to have sluggish response speed, especially between 9:40 - 11:00 AM.

We have eliminated network congestion as a cause.
All health metrics on Panther report being normal: 3-7% CPU utilization, zero NIC errors, average RAM utilization.
Because no errors are being reported by the server's own health checks, we cannot identify the issue to fix it. We are continuing to investigate and are calling in consultants to help.

We realize this is causing lost productivity and instructional time. This is a top priority for the IT staff. We appreciate your patience in this difficult situation. Please continue reporting any patterns you observe.

Thank you.

How to sync work calendar and email on a smartphone

As people buy "smartphones" like Blackberries (or is it Blackberrys?), Treos, HTCs, and iPhones, the question pops up more frequently: "How can I sync my work mail and my calendar to my phone?"

The quick answer: You don't.

Syncing is a pain. The better alternative is to access all your email and calendar directly from your phone.

To do this, you must first start using the district's Google Apps at www.OregonSD.net. Once you are checking all your email, including your Groupwise email, on your district Gmail account, you can access it anytime with your smartphone. Same with your calendar. Just go to http://calendar.oregonsd.net. You'll be prompted to log in, and then your calendar will be presented in a smartphone-optimized layout for you.

Click on "Email" and you'll get your email, but again in a layout customized to your smartphone.

The beauty of this is simplicity. No extra cords, no extra software, and no syncing.

Update: The problem with this is that Blackberry's web browser is not a full-featured one, and it does not allow you to log in to the OregonSD.net page. Devices running Windows Mobile and Mac OS X (iPhone) are capable of logging in, so this works fine.

Because of this, Blackberry devices still require an external synchronization application, such as GooSync. We're working on documenting the process for getting all this working.

2008-12-12 Problem solved: Slow logins, LDAP errors, and Groupwise crashes

This week has been busy trying to fix slow login issues which appear to have been caused by problems with our LDAP server and a Groupwise server that crashed every day.

These seem to be fixed now.

We installed a patch on Monday on Groupwise, and it has stayed up ever since. The LDAP issue has been fixed, so the authentication service no longer hangs. This should fix the login problems that people have experienced. If you are still having those issues, please contact the helpdesk.

Good news for Brooklyn: the drive imaging service now works at Brooklyn again, so we won't have to bring computers back to the DSO to image them.

Web-based email is back up

Groupwise WebAccess was down at least part of the day on Saturday. As of 8:33 AM Sunday, it is back up.

Licensing restored

The corrupt license has been deleted and reinstalled, logins and Zen applications are working again. We are still having some LDAP errors adn I will keep workign on that issue

Licensing and Login problems - Dec 5

Two related issues this morning in IT land. If you are getting errors similar to "no license available for application XXXXX" - especially for Groupwise or MS Office - then you have options. The error is caused by the Zen Licensing server being corrupt. Fortunately, these applications are on the local PC and can be started without a license by using the old Programs menu instead of the Common Apps menu. 

If you have login errors (results window left open, very slow authentication), keep waiting. This is due to the same server issues and you will eventually get logged in. 

For everyone - most applications from the Zen menus will not work this morning, please right-click the NAL icon and click exit to close this for now.  Anything installed on your computer and accessible through the "Programs" menu should still work. 

I'll update this page and notify building secretaries when things are back to normal.  

District Internet connection

The planned "brief" Internet outage ended up lasting about an hour and a half due to unforeseen complications. It was eventually resolved around 6:30 PM.

I apologize for the inconvenience.

Brief Internet outage Tuesday, 11/25, 4:15 - 4:45 PM

There will be a very brief Internet outage some time between 4:15 and 4:45 PM on Tuesday, November 25, while we migrate to a new WiscNet router. The actual interruption will last about two minutes.

Middle School server is back up

UPDATE: The server is back up. thanks for your patience.
===========
The Middle School server has suffered a hardware failure and is down. We are currently diagnosing the exact hardware component, and are trying to get it replaced as soon as possible. More updates will follow as we have more to report, but at this time, we anticipate it could be down all day today (Wednesday, November 19).

Google's public start page error message

UPDATE:
Google seems to have figured out that we aren't really infected with a virus, and have restored functionality to the start page.

===========
Google is returning an error message when anyone tries to access www.OregonSD.net. The error message is included below. We are trying to determine the cause of the problem (as is Google, according to their message) and hope to have service back shortly.

We're sorry...

... but your query looks similar to automated requests from a computer virus or spyware application. To protect our users, we can't process your request right now.
We'll restore your access as quickly as possible, so try again soon. In the meantime, if you suspect that your computer or network has been infected, you might want to run a virus checker or spyware remover to make sure that your systems are free of viruses and other spurious software.
If you're continually receiving this error, you may be able to resolve the problem by deleting your Google cookie and revisiting Google. For browser-specific instructions, please consult your browser's online support center.
If your entire network is affected, more information is available in the Google Web Search Help Center.
We apologize for the inconvenience, and hope we'll see you again on Google.

The error message on...

The error message on the filtering system page has returned. We are in contact with technical support and they're to find the solution. Thank for your patience. listen

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Colors and layout changed to improve legibility

In response to feedback, the layout and colors of this blog have been changed. (Don't worry- you are still in the right place.) Larger, black print on a white background should be easier to read.

Security filter login page

UPDATE: This issue has been resolved as of 2008-11-04, 9:00 AM.

===========
The normal login option on the security warning page is not available. Instead, you will see a long error message. To fix the error, we have to restart the server. However, since this is likely to affect a very small number of users, and because restarting would temporarily interrupt all Internet traffic, I've decided to wait until non-business hours to do this.

It should be back to normal functionality tomorrow (Tuesday, November 4).

Email server down for maintenance 7-8 AM Friday

The GroupWise Server will be down for maintenance tomorrow morning (Friday, October 31) beginning at 7:00 a.m. for about 1 hour. E-mail will be unavailable during this time as well as the WebAccess page. Please refrain from trying to login or check mail with the internal client during this time.

Moodle updates

The Info Tech Literacy Teachers spent all day Thursday getting trained on Moodle. Our trainer was a social studies teacher from Sun Prairie who is a Moodle Certified Trainer.

Based on her extensive experience and best practices, we have made some changes to our Moodle site. You'll notice some changes to the front page to make it easier to find courses. We have added a "site news" section on the front page to inform you of changes, and are working on many other enhancements to make Moodle more effective and easier to use.

Please feel free to give us feedback as we develop this powerful learning tool.

Internet outage 9-10 PM Monday night, 10/27

The district's Internet connection will be down from 9-10 PM tonight (Monday, October 27) for planned router maintenance. During this time, all Internet traffic an and out of the district will be unavailable. This means Citrix, email, PowerSchool, and web access will be unavailable.

If anything bad happens, we'll post status updates here.

Moodle update

Moodle is now back to full functionality. The problem turned out database corruption. It is now repaired and back to normal.

Virus and spyware threat: "Statement of fees"

Some users have received an email message with a zip file attached. The subject is "statement of fees." Please do not open the file or forward to us. Just DELETE immediately. Here's a screen shot of the mail received:

 

 

Some indications that this is an attack:

• the return address is from a foreign domain (bradteal.com.au)
• wording is pretty vague and generalized, but implies some time-sensitive pressure "this will be posted today"
• you have no idea who "Cherry Sylvester" is

Oregon's Tech Roadmap

IT Roadmap Summary

This is a very brief summary of the plans over the next two years regarding IT systems. This isn't a comprehensive list by any means; these are just the things I get asked about often.

Google Calendar on OregonSD.net

• All administrators required to use it now.
• Available to all staff now.
• Principals can require it of staff on their own timeline.

District email migration to Gmail

• People can begin using Gmail to check their Groupwise mail now, if they want.
• Spring 2009 training to train staff how to use Gmail.
• Full migration summer 2009, Groupwise will be discontinued.

Online video services

• Discovery Streaming is current offering.
• Some interest in exploring Safari Montage.
• Is there interest in a formal assessment?

Bandwidth

• Migrating by end of month from 10 Mbps over BCN to 20 Mbps dedicated fiber.
• Experimental proxy caching server (e.g. squid) in winter 2008
• Possible full squid implementation summer 2009

Building AV systems and CATV

• Prepare for local cable access channels and TV to not be required by franchise agreement.
• Winter 2008- develop alternative delivery systems.
• Summer 2010- all classrooms have large, digital, SVGA-compatible displays (plasma, LCD screen, LCD projector, or DLP projector), through various funding sources (TIP, building, district)
• Summer 2010- video distribution system implemented to replace current analog system.

Wireless LAN

• 802.11n final spec ratification expected November 2008
• Phase 2 network infrastructure deployment spring 2009
• 802.11g managed APs deployed to elementary schools
• 802.11n managed APs installed in RCI, OMS, OHS
• All plans are dependent upon funding, which has not yet been approved.

Moodle server is back up

Server is back up, but there is still the unresolved issue of the Participants page showing zero participants. This seems to be affecting all classes.

This does not affect how a student can log in to the class- they can still access everything they need to.

The workaround for teachers is to go into individual assignments, where teachers can still view submitted assignments, grade them, and post comments. Teachers can continue to post new assignments.

Work on this problem over the weekend did not resolve it. The IT staff is continuing to investigate the problem, but we have not found the cause, so we cannot provide an ETA for resolution.

Further updates to be posted on this site.

Moodle server is down

MAP testing complete

MAP testing is complete. Antivirus software is being re-activated on all computers and servers. Hopefully nobody contracted anything really dangerous while it was turned off. That still freaks me out that we have to do that.

Monthly (sorta) review

Since the first day of school, the IT Department has closed an amazing 740 helpdesk tickets. That's roughly 25 per work day, which is really high. This week, the backlog finally went under 100.

This might be normal- this is the first year we've had the GLPI helpdesk to track our work at the beginning of the school year. Even if it has always been this much work at the beginning of the year, it still seems like a ton.

Some projects got postponed due to an overload of summer projects. Destiny upgrades, SmartBoard installation, sound system installation, parent newsletter email system, ITIL databases, Groupwise migrations, disk-to-disk backup systems, virtualization projects, and Internet connection upgrades all had to be put off. We are finally catching up now and able to look ahead at these projects for the coming year.

Thanks for everyone who waited patiently (and even not so patiently) for us to resolve your issues and work on your systems.

Internet access planned outage Monday, 10/13, 9-10 PM

Internet access will be down from 9-10 PM on Monday, October 13, while the IT staff moves a router. This is in preparation to cutover to a faster Internet link. During this time, all Internet access will be cut off.

Be extra cautious of viruses and spyware during MAP testing

MAP testing will occur September 15 - October 6 in all buildings except OHS. During this time, due to the design of the MAP test applicaiton, virus protection must be turned off on desktops and servers that are used for MAP testing. Please be extra cautious about opening any email attachments that you are not expecting during this time, and report any suspicious or unusual computer behavior immediately.

Natural disaster day in techland

The datacenter had a "small-ish" flood today. It apparently was the result of a mistake made while "fixing" one air conditioning unit which had failed earlier this week.

No major systems were interrupted, but we are still trying to limp by at half cooling capacity, while drying the floor and walls, and waiting for repairs.

So far, we've had heat and flooding (and nearly fire, when sparks flew from the malfunctioning AC unit). If the water turns to blood or locusts start flying, I give up.

How to contact Information Technology Literacy Teachers

You can contact the Information and Technology Literacy Teachers to get help with classroom technology integration either online or via phone. You can submit a request online at http://sites.google.com/a/oregonsd.net/infotechliteracy/request-service-from-itlt

To contact them by phone, please refer to http://sites.google.com/a/oregonsd.net/infotechliteracy/Home/itlt-members . This page lists the contact information for all members of the Information Technology Literacy Team, including Library Media Specialists.

(Note: you will have to log in with your Novell username and password to view these staff-only sites.)

For your convenience, the new extensions for the Info Tech Literacy Teachers are listed here. If dialing from an outside line, simply add the "835-" prefix.

Jeri Shumaker, x6760
Pam Sengos, x6761
Shelly Kadow, x6762
Velvet Holmes, x6763

An Even Easier Helpdesk

We've enabled a feature in the new version of our helpdesk program. This feature allows you to email helpdesk requests to us.

All you need to do is send an email to helpdesk@oregonsd.org or helpdesk@oregon.k12.wi.us. (or friendly.technicians@oregon.k12.wi.us but that gets kinda long ;) ).

If you're more comfortable with the other interface, it's still available at http://helpdesk.oregonsd.org/ . Please include as much information as possible in either method.

As always, feedback is welcome!

How to install new printers

We are switching to a new and improved printing system called iPrint. Once the client is installed, it will try to update all installed printers automatically. This will work for the majority of printers district-wide, if they have not changed in any way. Many printers have changed over the summer, most notably copiers. At least one copier in each building has been replaced with a newer model, so these will have to be re-installed by whomever prints to them. Also, some printers were renamed to conform with a uniform standard. All printers are now named based on the "building-room-type" model, i.e. HS141_Laser or DO130_Copier. (High School room 141 laser and District Office, room 130, copier).

What it means for you
The simplest thing to do now is delete all the printers currently installed on your computer, then reinstall them with the new names.

Step 1 - Go to START, settings, Printers & Faxes.
Step 2 - Hold down "ctrl" while clicking once on each printer that is either an old P-something, says "DISTRICT" somewhere in the description or is a copier of any kind. Then press the delete key to remove them all at once. (This may take a few moments, depending on how many you select at once.)
Step 3 - when all old printers are gone, close the Printers & Faxes window, then open a Web browser to the Internal Home page.
Step 4 - Find "Install a new printer" under the "Online services" menu, and go to that page.
Step 5 - You'll now be looking at a list of ALL printers in the district. All printers will be grouped together by building alphabetically. Simply click on the printer you wish to install and say "Yes" to the 'Do you want to install this printer' question. There is also a check box to set a printer as default, choose that for the appropriate printer. Repeat for as many printers as you need to setup.

As usual, if you have any questions call us on the helpline (4025)

Trial run of Google Calendars for Computer Lab Reservations

We are doing a trial run of using Google Calendars for Computer Lab Reservations.
After much persistence by Dan at Brooklyn, we created an online calendaring system to allow teachers to reserve the Brooklyn computer labs online.

Zach made a cool tutorial on how to use the system. You can view it here (staff login required).

Currently, this is available only in the elementary schools while we test it. If everything works well, we will expand it to the other schools.

website [update]

The school website is now back up and running okay as of 4:15 CST Fri Aug 22.

www.oregonsd.org website

The school's website stopped responding at about 3:25PM CST on Friday Aug 22. No word yet on the cause, but the hosting company has been notified of the issue.

Caller ID Spoofing AGAIN

It seems that the telemarketers are back at it.
They are able to manipulate the caller ID information so that it appears that their call is coming from The Oregon School District. This happened last year as well, but it appears that they are trying it again.
Beware...

new fiber installation

A new fiber-optic connection directly from OSD to WiscNet is coming in the next few days. While we're routing the fiber, we are going to re-route the Charter cable coming into the DSO, so there will be a brief interruption in the CATV service to the district. More details when we get a schedule.

If you have been infected with a virus

Anyone who has been affected by the malware that is circulating via email please read on. 

 

If you have been affected on a school computer please submit a helpdesk ticket asap.

http://helpdesk.oregonsd.org/

 

If you have been affected on a home computer don't fret; we have found a program that will remove it quite efficiently. 

 

This is the link to download this program: 

http://www.download.com/Malwarebytes-Anti-Malware/3000-8022_4-10804572.html

 

To remove the malware

1 download and install the program

2 update when it asks if you want to update

3 run a full scan and delete all infected files that it finds.

 

Here is a more in-depth description of those directions if needed:

http://www.bleepingcomputer.com/malware-removal/remove-antivirus-xp-2008

 

Email malware warning

There has been a recent batch of malicious e-mails circulating the internet. PLEASE do not open any files from e-mail unless you are absolutely certain of who they are from. At least 4 district computers have been affected already, that I know of. All the e-mails have had different messages, but a similar pattern. Two were supposed greeting cards, another was from a fake airline, another from a fake mortgage company. The fake companies message say that a payment has been made or a charge has been made on your credit card and the invoice is attached. All the attached files are .ZIP files. If you open the file, a malware program called "Antivirus XP 2008" is immediately installed on the computer and starts nagging you with bogus reports of over 1000 virus infected files and asking for you to go to a website to register the software in order to remove the files. Undoubtedly, the site will collect as much personal information as it can then rip you off. Uninstalling the program does not work, so we've had to reimage the computers as a result.

 

Once again, DO NOT Open any file and simply delete the message as soon as possible. No need to forward them to us, we know what they are and will be tweaking the filter to try and block them.

 

Thanks,

your friends in Technology

Content filtering issues being resolved today

There has been an issue with the Lightspeed network security system blocking staff access to content that it should allow. This affects only web sites that are allowed for staff but are blocked for students. YouTube is the most prominent example of this.

We have identified the cause of this behavior as being due to the system not knowing if it is staff or students logged in to a particular computer. Today we are deploying a small software program to all the computers, called the Lightspeed User Agent, which will let the network security system know who is logged into the computer so that the proper content filtering settings can be applied.

This should be in effect by tomorrow (Thursday, Aug. 14). Until then, if you are blocked from a site, look or a "Login" link near the bottom of the security warning message. Staff can click on it and log in using Novell credentials to access sites that would otherwise be restricted from students.

ASUS EeePC pilot project has graduated to a supported option

Last year, we ran a pilot project using the ASUS EeePC 2G Surf "mini laptop."

Our pilot projects last year were so successful, that this year we are adding the ASUS EeePCs as a supported project in our schools. Oregon Middle School's Technology Committee chose to purchase 30 ASUS EeePCs instead of the desktop computers originally slated for replacement. OMS already has a wireless network, so the new mini-computers should work well. We are continuing to issue them as unmanaged, Linux-based, application-specific devices. The plans are to use them mainly for web-based research and word processing in classrooms. Students at OMS are required to bring their own USB drive as a basic school supply, so they can save their work on them.

Oregon High School is purchasing ten EeePCs to use in English classrooms through a GT grant. The goal is to alleviate the contention for computer lab time by giving word-processing units to English classes.

Rome Corners Intermediate school, purchased nine EeePCs through building funds to be used by one of our very innovative teachers. They are the answer to the teacher's long-standing desire to provide more information access to her students. Conventional laptops were cost-prohibitive, but the low price of these allows the school to purchase them.

Each of our three elementary schools has purchased one or two of the EeePCs to check out to teachers, and some special education teachers at the high school have also purchased one or two computers to use with the students they serve.

We are collaborating with other districts to find better ways to manage and support these devices. They appear to be very promising, and we look forward to being able to provide them on a broader basis where they meet a specific need.

Getting ready for the return of teachers

We are busily preparing for the return of teachers. Today we began in earnest dismantling the summer school computers and putting them back in their regular rooms. Most of our equipment orders are streaming in, so now we have to inventory it all.

All the new computers have been placed, except for the very recent requests for new staff. Soon the setup of phone extensions and voicemail will begin, though some will have to wait until we get room assignments.

Email and Rome are back up

Email and Rome are back up. Seems to be a strange day here in tech land. I hope no more servers catch the bug.

Email and Rome down

Email and Rome servers are down.

Voicemail is back up

Voicemail service is back up and running.

Voicemail is down- cause unknown

Voicemail is down- cause unknown. Working on it.

Confusion between duplicate external website

We have received reports of changes made to the OregonSD.org website not showing up, and after much head-scratching and hair-pulling, figured out that it appears to be caused by the old instance of the site still being live, and a DNS issue that keeps resolving to it.

We are in the process of changing the hosts file on internal computers so they resolve to the new IP address, and are asking the host of the old site to remove it. This should alleviate the confusion. 

Working on new start page to replace internal page

We're working on a new, customizable "start page" to replace the outdated "internal homepage" that is the default home page on district computers. We're pretty excited about this, since it will interface with our new Google Apps domain, and will provide a customized page for every user. It will also be accessible from outside of the district, so all those helpful links will be available for you even when you are off campus.

If you want to check out the new page, you can go to http://partnerpage.google.com/oregonsd.net and log in with your Novell username and password.

Strange issues with Microsoft Word not working

UPDATE 2008-08-05
These issues have been resolved for everyone except those who use the Lawson Excel plugins in Office 2003. We are still working on those.

---

We are dealing with multiple reports of Microsoft Word not working for some people. Symptoms include:

• Word crashes frequently
• Cannot save documents
• Crashes during mail merge
• Error "can't fire event"
• Error "not enough memory"
• Unable to view embedded images in PowerPoint (okay, not Word, but still Office)

One correlation is that Office 2003 seems to have these issues, whereas Office XP does not. The only people who should have Office 2003 are those who need the Lawson Excel plugins for Office 2003. Reverting others back to XP seems to help.

There are other issues that we are still investigating, but resolving the issue with Office 2003 is a high priority.

MasStore pilot project

WiscNet is proposing a pilot project to provide as much storage as we can use for DR, CDBR, etc. Usage neutral, vendor neutral, and acronym neutral. Because it's a pilot project, we shouldn't put any critical or production data on it. Use it, try it, break it.

Problem: When something it free, and there is no expiration date, people don't use it. So, we will have to pay for it a bit. Pilot will have an application process, as well as a dollar amount to join.

Need volunteers for the pilot process.

MasStore

I'm attending WiscNet's MasStore event at the Pyle Center to discuss "shared large-scale multipurpose IP-accessible storage." It will include a with about fifty other state organizations how we can cooperatively aggregate storage resources to meet our data storage, backup, and recovery needs. This is something that has evolved over the past two years of work with the Critical Data Backup and Recovery working group (CDBR). Now that WiscNet has launched their "Grow Smart" initiative, bandwidth is not the critical limiter it was a year ago. GrowSmart is "unlimited network access at a fixed, multi-year cost."

The storage landscape has changed. Several vendors are going to present possible solutions today, and then the fifty or so attending WiscNet member organizations will ask questions. After the vendors are gone, the members will discuss how we can possibly use their services, and more importantly, each other, to solve our data backup needs.

Office renovation for Tech Resource Teachers

Today the office is in a bit of chaos. New furniture is being installed so the Tech Resource Teachers have a place to call home, and the roofing project is in full swing. I had to move out of my office because stuff was falling on my head. Fortunately, not very big things.

Trying to get fiber connection to OASIS

Our new alternative high school OASIS, will be physically located in the new ice rink south of OHS. We need to provide phone/data/CATV to our staff and students there. We have two main options: install new fiber or somehow do a mid-run splice on the fiber that is already underground right on the property. I will be meeting with several folks next week to discuss the most cost-effective options which won't hamstring us in the future.

Power restored

Power has been restored to Oregon. Our systems are operating normally.

There are still unrelated outages on the east side of Madison and in eastern Dane County. Reports are that some US Cellular towers went offline around 3 am, and Verizon land lines are affected, as well as some Norlight circuits. This has resulted in Internet access outages for people around the Dane County area.

Power outage since 6...

Power outage since 6 o'clock PM. Oregon is experiencing a wide spread power outage affecting most, if not all of town. Our core systems are running on the generator.

The public website is back online.

The public website is back up and running. Thank you for your patience.

Lockdown security conference

I am attending the Lockdown 08 security conference today at UW-Madison. It promises to be a challenging day, as I am taking some hands-on workshops on security analysis tools.
-Jon

Public website offline again

The public website is offline again. We are working on resolving the issue. Thank you for your patience.

Tech office moving later this week

The IT department office will be under construction beginning July 23 and ending (hopefully) July 25. During that time, we will still respond to phone and email, but we may be physically relocated to a nearby meeting room. Just in case you need to find us.

Monthly review, July 2008

IT Monthly Review
July 21, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 95 helpdesk tickets.
• Implemented VPN services on the PIX (still in testing mode)
• Migrated four servers to virtualized instances on new hardware
• Successfully migrated email from a GroupWise account to a Gmail account under Google Apps.
• Implemented bandwidth management on the Lightspeed system.
• Began planning district-wide 802.11n wireless implementation.
• Kept working on replacing the 375 old computers, mainly at OHS and RCI.
• Performed setup for summer school and Oregon Summer Series courses.
• Completed PowerSchool rollover for end-of-year processes. 
• Migrated public website to new hosting facility operated by CESA 6.
  

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

• Sent three teachers to the National Educational Computing Conference (NECC).
• Experimented with various Web2.0 social networking applications.
• Taught a variety of professional development classes for teachers from Oregon and neighboring districts.
• Developed curricula for new courses in the fall.
• Began physical relocation of Tech Resource Teacher offices
• Assessed benefits of Destiny upgrade for circulation management.
• Contributed to summer school operations.

In the past month, Jon:

• Got a trap door installed in his office.
  
• Participated in administrative retreat.
  
• Facilitated the "Technology Standards for Administrators" course on administrative retreat.
• Contributed to A-team meetings.
• Began developing a PDP assistance packet for staff to incorporate NETS*T.

public website outage

The www.OregonSD.org web site was temporarily unavailable for a few hours beginning Friday evening. The site was moved (as planned) to a new hosting location operated by CESA 6. However, due to a virtual hosting misconfiguration on CESA 6's servers, the www.OregonSD.org domain name misdirected to an unrelated web site.

We apologize for the confusion and inconvenience. A tip of the hat to Zach for contacting CESA 6 to resolve this issue well after work hours.

E-mail system returned to service

We found the setting that was preventing some users from logging in and corrected it. Webaccess and client connections are now working on the new server address.

Some people still reporting email inaccessible

Some people still report not being able to access email, even using the Groupwise client. We are continuing to work on this. Thank you for your patience.

Email server Up - Webaccess login still down

The GroupWise Server is running and can be accessed with the client only at this time. (Use CITRIX if you don't have a client installed at home). The webaccess feature is not working. We will continue working on this tomorrow a.m.

PowerSchool rollover complete

PowerSchool rollover is now complete. Feel free to begin working on information for the 2008-2009 school year.

PowerSchool rollover in progress; email still down (as planned)

The PowerSchool rollover process is in progress. By tomorrow morning, all students should show up in their correct schools and grades for the 2008-2009 school year.

In other news, the email server is still being worked on, so it is not accessible right now. We still anticipate it will be up by this evening. Further updates as events warrant.

Email server down for maintenance today, 12:30 - 4:30 PM

E-mail system will be down today for a system upgrade from approximately 12:30-4:30 p.m. This only effects GroupWise (client and web), you can still access files on the servers.
Sorry for the inconvenience.

Delays with server migration

We ran into some issues with the server migrations. Netmail is done. The fibre-channel cards for the old servers did not work in the new servers, so we had to buy new ones. Ouch, they were pricey. Now, we are having trouble getting them to work properly with the Linux host OS. They came with a driver disc, and it seemed to install, but isn't recognized for some reason.
We are postponing the remaining server migrations until we figure that out. Also, we will get some consultant help to assist with migrating the email servers to a new VLAN (and therefore new IP address) to get them off the management VLAN. It's a best practice thing.

Email offline today for planned maintenance

As announced for the past couple weeks, district email will be offline today for planned migration to new server hardware.

Things should return to normal sometime today- at the latest by tomorrow, July 11. Updates on any complications or unforeseen glitches will be posted here, since we can't very well send out email notifications that the email server is down. So, if you can't access email, check back here for reports.

Planned server outages

Just a reminder:

The following servers will be migrated to new hardware starting today and lasting all this week: DSO, GroupWise (email), MIDDLE, and Netmail. The plan is for each server to be inaccessible for one day. Here are the planned dates for each server:

July 7: MIDDLE
July 8: Netmail
July 9: DSO
July 10: GroupWise

IT skeleton crew today

The IT department is running on a skeleton crew today due to the holiday weekend. Bear with us if support times are longer than normal. If you don't reach a live person on the help desk phone line, please either leave a message or submit a ticket online.

PowerSchool rollover postponed to July 16

The PowerSchool rollover to the 2008-2009 school year has been postponed until July 16.

If you care about the reasons, here you go:

OHS report cards are now processed, but we need to run grade distribution reports for the high school, and there is an error with the reports. CESA 5 support is looking into workarounds.

We need to make sure all necessary changes are made to accommodate the switch to semesters at RCI. This could be extensive, so we are consulting with Mike Way at CESA 5 to make sure won't miss anything.

Internet outage

Just to add to the chaos of the first day of summer school, our Internet connection went down for a while. Actually, it was fluttering up and down, according to WiscNet. By 8:30, we had it fixed, when Zach turned packetshaping back on. We still need to get Lightspeed's bandwidth management working the way we want it.

Summer school ready to go!

We think we have everything ready for summer school to begin on Monday. Of course, there are always a few surprises, but I'm sure Larry has everything under control. Most summer school courses start June 30. 

NKE labs getting set for summer school

Asbestos abatement is complete in the Netherwood labs, so we are putting them back together for summer school. Due to heat issues in the lab, we are replacing the CRTs with LCDs. This should save the cost of HVAC improvements. 

Brooklyn lab swap-out done

New computers should be installed in the Brooklyn labs today. The old ones had a horrible fan noise problem, which made a lab full of them too loud to hear the teacher. The new ones should be much quieter. The computers removed from the lab are being moved into classrooms, where there isn't as much problem with aggregate fan noise.

VPN up and running!

Zach got a VPN working on our PIX, which is really cool. In conjunction with a Novell login program for Windows, a user with a district notebook computer can now log in from anywhere on the net and have access to all the district servers. Local files, home directory, etc. Big advantage over Citrix is the local printing support. The downside is slower access to things, since it isn't just painting screens like Citrix, but it's still really cool.

I also got it working on Mac OS X, though not with the Novell client. (I'll try that next.)

Monthly review

IT Monthly Review

June 20, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 307 helpdesk tickets.
• Received, unloaded, and began configuring 375 new computers.
• Moved NKE labs for asbestos abatement.
• Set up for summer school.
• Checked out summer use notebooks to many staff.
• Started summer maintenance cycle on hardware.
  

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

• Revised job descriptions of Tech and Library EAs to make sure schools have adequate support next year.
  
• Finalized participant rosters for next year's Technology Integration Project.
• Had a video editing workshop.
• Attended SmartBoard training.
  

In the past month, Jon:

• Communicated with other ASUS EeePC pilot projects in Colorado and Maine.
  
• Participated in A-Team meetings regarding staffing and program changes.
• Implemented and facilitated Moodle course: NETS for Administrators.
  
• Hired summer help.
• Hired final Tech Resource Teacher position for 2008-2009.
  
• Assisted with coordination of keyboarding teaching schedule at elementary buildings.
  
• Coordinated installation of multiple projector and SmartBoards purchase with building and grant funds.
  

PowerSchool back to normal

The PowerSchool server has returned to normal operations. PowerGrade users, please resume normal use.

Thank you to anybody running reports who stopped them. Please consider setting reports to be run during off hours such as evenings and weekends, when the server is not dealing with the regular workload of daily business.

PowerSchool support investigated, but could not find anything wrong with the server. They determined that it was just suffering from a huge number of requests at once. The busy handlers are back down to 1-3 now, so it should respond correctly to PowerGrade users. I asked about increasing the number of handlers, but they said doing so would reduce performance of the web server, which most people use to access the server.

Thanks for your patience.

PowerSchool overloaded

The PowerSchool server is way overloaded right now, causing PowerGrade users to get a "cannot connect to server" message. PowerGrade is designed to save your grades and send them up to the server the next time it can connect, but the best advice I can give right now would be to wait. If you are running any reports that can wait until later, please wait.

More info: The server has all 80 "handlers" being used. (On a regular day, it's about 4-6.) We are trying to increase the resources allocated to jobs, but there is a tradeoff between general system performance.

Monthly review, May 22, 2008

IT Monthly Review

May 22, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 349 helpdesk tickets.
• Investigated a major security breach, and performed a wholesale password policy revision as a result.
  
• Investigated network management solutions for Linux computers.
• Began preliminary planning for Alternative High School phone, computer, and data needs.
  
• Troubleshot several cases of unexpected server performance degradation.
• Developed plan for elimination of roaming profiles on user accounts to decrease login times.
  
• Finalized hardware replacement plans for summer 2008.
• Resolved issue of fiber optic cabling being in path of ice rink- the rink will move 4' to accommodate the easement.
• Processed and uploaded MAP and WKCE test scores to Eclipse.
• Processed summer course registration for teachers.
• Created furniture plans for new Tech Resource offices in DSO tech area.
• Began work on a regular student data import into Naviance system for OHS guidance.
  

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

• Discussed staff changes for next year.
• Identified ways to improve the summer series registration process in coming years.
• Began revising job descriptions of Tech and Library EAs to make sure schools have adequate support next year.
  
• Identified concerns with the new elementary schedule and began communicating those to principals.
  
• Designed three new versions of the TIP class to allow increased participation by staff.
• Facilitated the TIP showcase for the Board.
  

In the past month, Jon:

• Observed several high school classes using the ASUS EeePCs.
  
• Participated in A-Team meetings regarding staffing and program changes.
• Began planning summer NETS training for administrators.
  
• Presented report to the Board regarding the Technology Integration Project.
• Reached a tentative agreement for purchase of our surplus computers this summer.
• Attended the WiscNet Future Technologies Conference.
• Participated in labor management meeting.
• Tested PHPlist mailing list system.
• Coordinated installation of multiple projector and SmartBoards purchase with building and grant funds.
  

OHS logins slow; LDAP errors

UPDATE- Panther has been rebooted. Possible cause was a time synchronization issue. If you are still having errors, please log out and log back in, as this will reset the connection between the workstation and the server. If you had PowerGrade open when the server went down, you will likely have errors. Please call the helpdesk at x4025.

>>>
ALERT-

OHS is experiencing slow logins. We are aware of the problem and are working on it. Panther directory structure is being repaired.

People are experiencing LDAP failures when trying to log in to email, after successfully logging in to Novell. We are investigating the issue.

Middle school server is down

UPDATE 12:55 PM-
Server is now working normally. Users will have to re-login to Novell in order to access their home directories.

NOTICE- MIDDLE is not mounting VOL1, where user data is kept. Logins should still work, but data is not accessible. Error appears to be with the SAN device driver. SAN pool VOL1 not showing up under nss /pools.

Monthly review, April 22, 2008

IT Monthly Review

April 22, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 265 helpdesk tickets.
• Got MAP testing working reasonably well, thanks to a week's worth of work by Doug and Zach.
  
• Deployed a new SPAM filter system that allows users to see the spam that got blocked and whitelist senders who should not have been blocked.
  
• Launched a pilot program of the EeePC at OHS that has attracted interest in several states. (Read description here.)
  
• Created a Datacast web-publishing wiki to share resources with other Wisconsin school districts.
• Developed a Linux-based live CD to install the datacast software onto any PC, and made it available publicly.
• Worked with the Educational Communications Board to educate other districts about the advantages of datacasting and the open-source software available to deploy it easily.
  
• Evaluated several computers for the 2008-2009 school year replacement cycle.
• Panicked about the new ice rink construction threatening to dig up our fiber optic cable feeding OMS and BKE.
• Prepared and submitted MAP test rosters.
• Developed online registration for summer series courses for teachers.
• Set up new parent liaison employees in the increasingly crowded DSO.
  

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

• Coped with reorganization plan for next year.
• Coordinated our involvement with the SACs to incorporate ITL outcomes into curriculum.
• Reviewed summer course offerings.
• Assisted TIP participants with using new equipment.
• Helped with a little bit of MAP testing logistics.
  

In the past month, Jon:

• Developed recommendations for the board regarding Tech Resource, computer apps, and keyboarding staffing.
• Assisted principals with job change meetings with teachers.
• Co-presented OSD's Datacast web-publishing model with Zach at the WEMTA conference.
• Assisted with interviews for a Tech EA position.
• Developed 2008-2009 budget priorities and created a preliminary budget.
  

Web access and new filter

What:
The new SPAM filter that we are using for email also has the ability to filter web traffic. We will be implementing this functionality this afternoon at 3:00 PM.


What this means for you:
--Some sites that you used to be able to get to may be blocked.
--Some sites that were blocked may be unblocked.

The categories of sites are bound to be a little bit different than the filter that we are currently using. I have tried to match up the sites as closely as possible, but there will probably still be some differences.


Actions needed to be taken by you:
If you plan to use any web sites in your curriculum tomorrow or later this week, please check that they are unblocked before class time. While checking access please keep in mind that, as with the old system, staff are able to access more than students.

Normally when a site needs to be unblocked a request needs to be sent to the principal at your building and then they will forward it to Jon Tanner.
For the next two weeks, if the site was previously available, please send an email directly to me and I will get it changed ASAP.

Thank you for your patience while we try to improve our services and efficiency.


-Zach

“Change is inevitable - except from a vending machine.”
~Robert Gallagher

MAP testing appears to be going well

Thanks to Doug and Zach's extensive work last week, MAP testing appears to be going well. Logins this morning occurred quickly. The few glitches included one student not showing up as active, which Doug fixed manually, and some logins not working at RCI when trying to set up the second round of testing. That was fixed by exiting and relaunching the program.
Keep your fingers crossed!

MAP Testing- hopefully not the apocalypse

MAP testing starts Monday morning. Doug and Zach have been working on getting it running. Here is Doug's summary of the situation.

After spending the better portion of this week troubleshooting, I've concluded that the Virus Scanning application on all the district computers is a large detriment to MAPS. In simplistic terms, when TestTaker starts up, it is copying all of the student info and test questions from the server to a temporary location on the C: drive. this is a fairly large amount of data and can be slow when many computers are doing this all at once, without any delays. At the same time, our anti-virus application is doing what it is supposed to - scanning every single file that gets saved or copied to the hard drive. The natural drawback is that this also slows the loading process as each file pauses for a fraction of a second to be scanned. Eventually, the TestTaker either times out or believes that one of the files is corrupt and produces the error that you are all familiar with by now. The first solution I thought of was to remove the Virus Scan and this is what I've done at OMS in both labs. After all that, I thought of a better (i.e. easier) way to help this morning. I pushed a setting through the Application launcher this morning that will disable the service controlling the scanner. It will be/was pushed out to any computer that uses a MS/RC or EL student login today. after this setting is in place, a reboot is required for it to actually be in effect. Time for the payoff - to ensure that all machines are set to go Monday morning. Please make sure that any computers that will be used for testing gets logged in once today by a student user, then reboot, or just wait and shut down this afternoon. When they start on Monday, the scanner will be disabled and the tests will load correctly. This won't prevent 100% of the problems, but I think will help with a large majority of them. I expect there to be a few instances where the load still hits the time out period, but it will be due to too many loads running at the same time, instead of the Virus scanner. In this case, just go back to the student selection screen and try again until it loads. Finally, if you want to be sure the virus scanner is disabled, check the taskbar icon. Normally, it is the blue box with the "bouncing ball" running through. When disabled, the blue box will have the classic Red Circle with a line through it.

Keep your fingers crossed!

Welcome new bloggers!

After attending the WEMTA conference on Monday, I and the rest of the Information Technology Literacy Team have lots of ideas buzzing through our heads. One thing I am particularly excited about is the two new blogs that have been launched in our schools. One is by "iVelvet", one of our Technology Resource Teachers, and the other is a class blog by Ms. Boyer's third grade class.

Velvet's blog is "Shaping the Future- One Click at a Time."

Shannon Boyer's class blog is called "Boyer's Bloggers." (I love the name.) Shannon is going to use the blog to post student work (after getting appropriate parental permission, of course).

Please help me welcome Velvet and Ms. Boyer's class to the blogosphere by visiting their blogs and perhaps posting a comment or two!

SPAM

You may have noticed in increase in spam in your Inbox. This is due to the expiration of "Energize Updates" on our current anti-spam system. We are hoping to implement the new system within weeks, and therefore don't want to pay the annual subscription renewal. Actual percentage of spam increase has been negligible, but some users are getting 5-10 per day instead of only one per day. We still block most spam. Our ratio of spam blocked to email allowed is 10:1. You can see in the graph below that the amount of spam (red) is still being blocked, and is much greater than the number of messages being allowed (in green).

Click for a larger image.

Internet planned outage Mon., Mar. 24, 4:30 PM

At 4:30 today all internet services will be down for maintenance. We are installing a new filter to handle (among other things) the spam that we have all been receiving this past week.

Systems Affected:
During this outage you will not be able to:
-Use any internet services whatsoever from inside the district.
-Email from outside the district.
-Powerschool from outside the district.
-Citrix
-District web pages other than www.oregonsd.org

Duration:
This outage will start at 4:30 PM today (Mar 24) and last for approximately 1 hour.

Actions needed to be taken by you:
If you are using any of the affected system at the time of the outage you are prone to data loss. Please log off of any affected system before 4:30 PM.

Monthly review- March 22, 2008

IT Monthly Review

March 22, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 295 helpdesk tickets.
• Received word that NWEA has released TestTaker 6 for MAP testing. In related news, Verona started their annual testing and had the same problems we did last year. This does not bode well for our tests, but perhaps the new version of TestTaker will help.
• Installed the demo version of Lightspeed Total Traffic Control to test for deployment.
• Re-refined the parent mass-mailer system for approvers to make it smoother. Still have a few bugs to work out, though.
• Revised PowerSchool backup scheme to give us monthly historical archives in addition to disaster recovery restoration points.
• Test implemented a Groupwise-based calendar for reserving the DSO North Conference Room.
• Ordered equipment for the Technology Integration Program (TIP) requests.
• Drafted 2008-09 budget for IT department.
• Chose specs for standard desktop to be ordered this summer.
• Performed troubleshooting on the OMS server to solve poor performance.
• Migrated all printers to a new server to reduce the dependencies between email and print queues.
• Dealt with a slight increase in spam received by users due to expiration of "Energize Updates" on our current anti-spam system. We are hoping to implement the new system within weeks, and therefore don't want to pay the annual subscription renewal. Actual percentage of spam increase has been negligible, but some users are getting 5-10 per day instead of only one per day. We still block most spam. Our ratio of spam blocked to email allowed is 10:1. You can see in the graph below that the amount of spam (red) is still being blocked, and is much greater than the number of messages being allowed (in green).
• Dealt with systems that are still not compliant with the new DST change schedule.
• Implemented SAML single sign-on for Google Apps domains.

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

• Developed budget for 2008-09.
• Started planning for the logistics of actually implementing the ITLT Professional Development Plan.
• Did some on-the-fly keyboarding research to recommend to administration.
• Brainstormed possible ways to proactively deal with the migration to digital TV signals, which is resulting in scarcity of analog AV equipment we use.
• Coordinated our involvement with the SACs to incorporate ITL outcomes into curriculum.
• Reviewed summer course offerings.
  

In the past month, Jon:

• Was principal for a day at OMS. Twice.
• Assisted with the A-team Tier 1 Indicator culture subcommittee
• Participated in planning the WiscNet Future Technologies Conference
• Researched keyboarding best practice and made recommendations to the administrative team
  
• Created an A-Team wiki
• Presented the ITLT Professional Development Plan to the board
• Assisted with the transition of a long term sub TRT at RCI.
  

Spring break

We will be running with reduced staff over spring break (March 21-30). Two techs will be in training all week, and we have a few vacation days among us. Hopefully it will be quiet, since no students and few staff will actually be here.

Budget crunch

Working on the 08-09 budget is getting tough. We have to replace 392 computers this summer- more than double what we did last summer. Apparently, five years ago we bought a whole lot of computers, so now they need to be replaced. We anticipated this last year and pre-emptively replaced about thirty more than we needed to after only four years of service to reduce the number being replaced this year. But 392 is still huge. It's putting a strain on our budget. I've already anticipated the unit cost savings from last year, and cut non-essential items from the budget, but I'm still about $100,000 overbudget. That works out to the cost of about 200 computers, so I guess that makes sense. 

The real downside is that it takes away from other initiatives, like wireless networks, LCD projectors, and an inline UPS for the data center. Perhaps these will have to be shifted to the building budgets. Well, not the UPS. I'll have to save that for a future year. 

Zach had a good idea, which was to earmark a large amount of money every five years for the "computer bubble," and then other years we make a large cyclical purchase, such as the inline UPS, network switches, or wireless network in a building. Assuming we replace 20% of our computers every year, that's around 300 computers. Compared to the nearly 400 computers we are replacing this year, that's an extra $100,000 (at today's price of around $500/unit).

Sigh....

Evaluating new system for spam filtering, web filtering, packet-shaping, etc.etc.

Got spam? We are evaluating a new system to prevent spam. It also performs packet-shaping bandwidth management, web filtering and reporting, and IM filtering. It will replace multiple systems, give us better reporting and management capabilities, and cost less.

We are installing a demo this week. It looks great in the demo (don't they all), so we're hoping it works well. If so, your spam should go down.

Keep your fingers crossed.

Principal for a day

I was out of the tech office today, filling in as the principal at the middle school. It was "exhilarating" as Chris promised, but I didn't get much of my normal job done. 

The clocks were messed up due to the new DST change date, and the company that services them lost the technician who normally works with our systems, so we have to re-orient a new person to our system. 

Impending nightmare of MAP testing

We did MAP testing last fall, and it was a nightmare. Horrible technical problems. Teachers in tears because they were futilely trying to get students logged in. NWEA tech support was barely any help. They told us to turn off anti-virus on our servers, which we did, but it only helped a little. I consulted the neighboring districts that use MAP and asked for help. We finally decided that the problem must be that our servers were not powerful enough for it. At the time, NWEA's system requirements for the server were a joke. Pentium III 1.3 GHz with 256 MB RAM, I believe. 

Anyway, we limped along and then went to the Board to ask for contingency funds to buy a dedicated server (we had been running each instance on a building file server). We got it, and have the server ready. 

But now that the spring testing window is here, other districts (who wisely test only once a year), are experiencing the same issues we did, in spite of successfully testing a year ago.

Here are some descriptions of the problems:

We just started yesterday, and we are experiencing some issues that we didn't have last year. Slowness to load, slowness between questions, timeouts and kids getting booted out of the test. If anything, our infrastructure is faster this year than last year. We didn't have any of these problems last spring. 

Do your proctors set up testing areas before the kids come in? Ours have always done that without problem, and this time we had reports where it would appear to time out. They had it on the screen that says "start test". We never had issues with this in the past, and NWEA says there is no time out set.

One proposed solution was

The other thing that we have done so that we don't bring the server to it's knees is stagger the start of the tests between schools and labs within the school.  Even if you only wait 5 minutes it can make all the difference.  From what I've gathered from the MAP tech support is that during the first five minutes of the students taking a test there is a spike of traffic between the work station and server.  Once the students get through those first minutes it relaxes a bit and a new group of students can get on. 

We tried this last year, and it did help somewhat, but the NWEA support people I talked to said it should have nothing to do with it. 

I am very worried about our spring MAP testing experience. 

Middle server acting really slow

The MIDDLE server is responding really slowly today. Not sure why, yet, but we see it on the server end as well as the user end.

UPDATE
Doug found the possible reason- two instances of Apache, only one of which will unload. Server load is back down to 10-20% utilization instead of the 50% it was at earlier. Server will be rebooted tonight to fix the remaining stuck Apache instance.

Slow email

Groupwise abended Monday night and performance gradually degraded through Tuesday morning. Server was rebooted Tuesday morning, and it appears to be working fine now. 

I've heard other complaints of slow logins and slow PowerSchool performance, but haven't gotten any helpdesk tickets on those, so I don't have any specifics to use for troubleshooting.

Barebones crew

The IT department/helpdesk is operating at a reduced staffing level today and tomorrow due to sickness and vacation. If you need help, please submit a ticket online unless it's really urgent.

Monthly review, February 20, 2008

The past month in IT:

• The IT department has closed 393 helpdesk tickets.
• We weathered our longest power outage of the year (seventeen minutes) and kept all systems running at the schools that retained power.
• Developed a plan to migrate all servers off VLAN 1.
• Procured two new HP DL380G5 servers to replace six aging DL380G2 servers. How will two servers replace six? Ah, the wonders of virtualization.
• Completed install of Magellan, the host machine for MAP server. (MAP, Magellan... get it?)
• Completed new online registration system for summer school.
• Began an assessment of our packetshaping device and possible alternatives to consolidate and reduce the cost of network management devices.
• Refined the parent mass-mailer system to streamline approval process.
• Developed an improved backup and disaster recovery plan.
• Evaluated several software packages for use as a shared online facility reservation system.
• Tested a subnotebook/UMPC device, the Asus EeePC, as a possible classroom research/word processing device.
• Identified computers to be replaced in summer 2008 as part of the ongoing five-year computer replacement plan
  

The past month of the Information and Technology Literacy Team:

Developed a NETS*A assessment tool for administrators.

Implemented the NETS*T assessment for OHS and RCI. The OHS data included 100% of the teaching staff, and shows us some amazing things. For example, only 3% of the staff are below one standard deviation from the mean in the area of Technology Operations and Concepts. This correlates to an average score of 1.5 on the assessment tool. The majority of the staff (84%) are within one standard deviation, and 13% are above. This correlates to greater than 3.5 on the assessment tool.
This indicates that professional development in the area of technology operation has been effective, and that we can move on to the real goal of improving instruction.

Participants in the Technology Integration Program finished their curriculum units and developed equipment proposals to enable them to implement. The proposals are being reviewed.

Completed the strategic ITL professional development plan.

How Jon kept busy:

• worked with Jeri and the 8O team at OMS to apply for a grant sponsored by HP and ISTE worth $40,000
• worked with Dave and the math department at OHS to apply for the same grant
• assisted with the A-team Tier 1 Indicator culture subcommittee
• participated in planning the WiscNet Future Technologies Conference
• consulted with EEN staff on best computer for a special needs student
• assisted with design of school culture survey for parents
• revised Board policies on web publication and Internet/email acceptable use
• shoveled tons of snow
  

Power Outage Debrief

The DSO experienced a power outage from 10:59 AM - 11:17 AM today, Wednesday, February 7. Because our IT infrastructure is centralized in the DSO, this could have been quite a problem. Fortunately, we designed our new datacenter with some elements to keep us up and running during such an outage. 

Here's a debriefing of the incident. 

At 10:59 AM, power was lost at the DSO, NKE, and PVE (and possibly others as well). OMS reported a brief flicker.

When the power went out, the UPS units kept all servers, core switches, routers, transceivers, and PBX equipment running until the emergency generator turned on and supplied power. The generator was supplying power within one minute. The datacenter load transferred to the generator power source seamlessly. All VoIP phones in the DSO stayed operational because they use power over ethernet (POE) from the 3750 switch. 

Jon opened the datacenter door with a key because the strike plates did not open when card was swiped. This was fixed a few minutes after the generator power came online. Control Solutions will add UPS backups to their systems soon to insure that card access keeps working in an outage.

Desktop computers in the DSO all turned off (except Zach's because he put his on a UPS). Those in the tech area turned back on when the generator power kicked back in. 

The WAN connection to OMS stayed up (Kiwi Syslog provides notification of dropped links), which is better than the previous two power "blips" that have caused the switches at OMS to reboot, thus interrupting the network connections for the entire school.

The only WAN connections that went down unexpectedly were the switches at PVE. They should have lasted longer. This was not a crucial issue, since they do not use VoIP phones, and all the computers were down anyway. Upon investigation, the UPS powering those switches was too small and old. Zach replaced it with the one from his desk.

When designing the tech area, we decided to include all the electrical outlets on the generator-supplied circuits so that the tech offices can be used as an emergency headquarters. This was the first extended blackout since then, so I informed other DSO staff that if they had urgent work to do, they could use a desktop computer in our area. 

The idea is that district administrators could bring their laptop computers and phones to the tech area and set up a temporary command center. Our wireless access points use POE to remain active during a blackout, and laptops run on battery power for a while, so they can stay running and connected for quite a while. 

Power came back online at 11:17. Generator turned off at 11:27. Desktop computers in the tech area stayed up during the cutover back to regular power.

In the old scenario without an emergency generator, all district phones would have gone dead around 11:05. All server connections would have been lost around 11:10. 

I'm very happy with how everything worked out, especially considering how bad this would have been without the emergency generator.