University IT Department Maintains Network Infrastructure

BY: CONNOR GALVIN

The University of Oklahoma’s IT Department maintains the university Internet access and utility access to the Internet, however they do much more behind the scenes than people think.

Once a month the IT department schedules maintenance for the network on the third Sunday of every month. This scheduled operation occurs from 6 a.m. until 12 p.m. however, many people don’t know what all they do on a daily basis to maintain day-to-day operations.

During these scheduled outages during the semester, the department works to make upgrades and do routine maintenance to the network to maintain that it is able to be active 24 hours a day, seven days a week.

“This maintenance is necessary to keep all campus systems running smoothly and Sunday mornings were picked due to the low user volume we typically see at this time,” said Becky Weintz, the communications Manager for the IT Department.

In the case of unexpected outages, the department utilizes specific monitoring systems that are able to automatically alert individual personnel to be able to preform maintenance in the event that something fails.

When unexpected outages occur, several staff members from across the organization work together to resolve the issues as quickly as they possibly can.

“We work collaboratively with the teams and departments that may be affected by these outages to ensure consistent operations” said Weintz.

Differing from other departments, when the campus is closed in the case of a snow day, operations are not affected. IT technicians are able to remotely monitor the systems in place and make sure to maintain staff on call in case of an outage or a major issue arises.

For the IT Department, when the campus closes, so does any immediate low level support such as the number to dial, 325-HELP, or their email address needhelp@ou.edu.

The IT Department also uses the university website, alerts.ou.edu, and their twitter account, @ouitsolutions, to alert students and faculty to any issues that or unexpected outages that can occur.

The IT Department works to maintain that all the other departments within the University are able to work seamlessly without interruption to internal network or external Internet access.