FACULTY/STAFF E-MAIL UPGRADES PLANNED; SYSTEM WILL BE DOWN THIS WEEKEND

To ensure that Old Dominion University's desktop and server environments keep pace with technological advancements, the Office of Computing and Communications Services will upgrade the current Lotus Notes environment (4.6) to the most recent release (R5) this weekend.

Staff members in OCCS and the Center for Learning Technologies have been piloting Notes R5 at their desktops since July 2000. As part of the upgrade plan, the student e-mail server and the University web server have been migrated to Notes 5.

The faculty and staff e-mail server, "Pearl," will be upgraded to Notes R5 from 3 p.m. on Saturday, Feb. 17 to 3 p.m. on Sunday, Feb. 18. During this 24-hour period, there will be no access to Faculty/Staff Lotus Notes mail from the desktop client or via the browser.

While delaying the server upgrade until Spring Break would have less immediate impact, such a delay would make it impossible for OCCS to complete the upgrade of faculty accounts prior to the end of the Spring 2001 semester. In the past, faculty members have expressed serious concern over having major changes done during the summer months. With Lotus/Domino poised to end support of Notes 4.6 by January 2002, delaying the University's upgrade to Notes R5 until the fall semester was not a viable alternative.

Existing mail files will be protected. Incoming mail will be held in queue and delivered to the appropriate mailboxes when the server is brought back on line. Unless an unavoidable problem occurs, no other servers/systems will be down during this time period. Access to the Internet, University Web pages, student e-mail and Web-based instructional tools will be maintained, as will access to the LIONS environment.

Faculty/staff members are invited to track the status of the server upgrade through the OCCS Web site at www.odu.edu/occs. Updates will be posted every two hours under our Alerts header.

Following the upgrade of the faculty and staff e-mail server, OCCS will begin the upgrade of individual user accounts on a department-by-department basis. Prior to the upgrade of a department or college, faculty/staff members will be provided with opportunities to meet with OCCS staff to discuss the upgrade and ask questions. Hands-on training and instructional materials will be available and on-site support will be provided.

For more information, contact Connie Merriman at 683-4503 or Rusty Waterfield at 683-4631.