Computing and Communications Services (CCS) will perform scheduled maintenance on the University of Guelph network during the early hours of Sunday, January 19. Access to University-provided services such as the Internet, the campus phone system – including residence phones – Gryph Mail and all University applications will be unavailable for several hours starting at midnight.

To ensure emergency calls are appropriately directed during the maintenance period, the main number 519-824-4120 will be working on a back-up system. Calls will be answered by a team of operators who will be working to co-ordinate all emergency calls received. If you encounter a busy signal due to call volume, please hang up and dial again. No campus extensions will be working during the scheduled down time.

Emergency services at the Ontario Veterinary College Health Sciences Centre will be available through the centre’s answering service. To contact the Small Animal Clinic, Animal Cancer Centre, Primary Healthcare Centre, Large Animal Hospital or Ruminant Field Service during the Jan. 19 shutdown, call 1-877-682-3637.

During this scheduled maintenance, CCS will replace current data centre firewalls with updated, higher-capacity models. The new devices support additional features that will be used to augment security capabilities and protect servers from more sophisticated attacks, as well as provide for future growth.

CCS clients were contacted in December to create a plan to test server applications following the migration to ensure that all server applications are working properly. While no problems are anticipated, campus users who have concerns following the Jan. 19 maintenance should contact their departmental IT representatives. For project-related questions, contact CCS project lead Tom Herr, manager of network infrastructure, at Ext. 56638 or therr@uoguelph.ca.