Complete Information Technology Infrastructure Outage: Sunday, July 21, 2019

Vancouver Island University’s (VIU’s) technology infrastructure is in need of significant remediation and renewal. VIU’s Information Technology Services (ITS) department is moving forward with a major Network Remediation Project (NRP) to achieve significant improvements to the university’s network infrastructure.  

As part of this project, there will be a four-hour IT infrastructure outage on Sunday, July 21, 2019, from 6 – 10 am to allow for replacement of outdated technology. This outage will affect all VIU campuses and properties. Please save and log off from your computer before the outage window, and email ithelp@viu.ca with any further questions. Please see below for details.

Sunday, July 21, 6am – 10am only

The following are UNAVAILABLE

• Internet access (external websites) from all campuses
• Wireless from regional campuses
• VIU email from outside the Nanaimo campus
• External resources from all (e.g. VIULearn, VIUVideos, certain Library Resources)
• Shared drives will not be accessible
• VPN
• Student logins to VIU computers at Parksville, CTC, Deep Bay, Milner and GR Paine locations will not work

The following will be AVAILABLE

• Wireless on Nanaimo campus, NO Internet
• VIU student computers in Nanaimo, Cowichan and Powell River – will be OK to login to, but have NO Internet
• VIU employee computers in Nanaimo, Cowichan and Powell River – will be OK to login to, but will have NO Internet
• For Parksville, CTC, Deep Bay, Milner and GR Paine: logins will only work if the user has logged into the computer previously.
• VIU email from the Nanaimo campus: incoming and outgoing emails will be queued and delivered automatically at the end of the maintenance
• From Nanaimo campus: local network resources/shared drives
• Code Blue emergency poles
• VOIP phones
• 4-digit dialing between campuses will be affected, use 10-digit dialing
• Access to voicemail and call flows from regional campuses will not be available

The main viu.ca website will not be available from any campus during the outage but will be available from off campus. Any www2.viu.ca websites will be available from the Nanaimo campus but not from off campus. Pages that require a log-in will not be accessible outside of the Nanaimo campus.  

Any applications hosted offsite will be functioning normally, but will not be accessible from all VIU campuses.

The Library Learning Commons will be open 24/7, with the following limits on resources during the outage window:

• WIFI will be available (no external sites/Internet)
• VDI student workstations will be available (no external sites/Internet)
• Library-licensed e-resources will not be available

The Nanaimo Library will be open during its regular Sunday hours from 10 am to 5 pm.

Open access library resources will be accessible at: libguides.viu.ca/library, from off campus.