QUESTION: What is the IT Outage Calendar?

ANSWER: Planned computing outages have at times conflicted with campus events and academic schedules. To minimize these conflicts, IT has developed a general outage calendar reflecting IT needs for maintenance throughout the year and based upon the college academic calendar. It is hoped that the college community will review this calendar when scheduling departmental and college events that require computing services. The calendar was published initially this November and will be updated every August.

Not every outage can be predicted in advance. Whenever possible, IT will update the calendar with unexpected outages and provide at least four days notice via MetroConnect.

QUESTION: Where can I find the IT Outage Calendar?

ANSWER: The calendar can be accessed at: http://www.mscd.edu/~infotech/services/syscal/. A complete downloadable calendar is available on the same Web page.

QUESTION: Why must there be outages?

ANSWER: There can be many reasons for outages. Regularly scheduled outages are usually for special backups to protect the college's investment in data. Other outages are due to the need for hardware and software upgrades to keep systems secure and up-to-date. Outages also are needed for maintenance or to replace problem hardware. Most of these systems are like your car - they need regular preventive maintenance to keep them dependable and running smoothly.