School ICT News Bulletin No. 276 - 23/07/2018 Published by ICT Services 4 Education eBulletin Items Powering off core network equipment over the Summer holiday period Hosted SIMS Unavailability - Friday, 27th July to Sunday, 29th July Service Desk opening hours – July 25th to August 31st Office 365 and Google email platforms Planned upgrades over the Summer holiday period 1. Powering off core network equipment over the Summer holiday period We would like to ask schools to refrain from turning off the power to the core networking equipment over the forthcoming Summer holiday period. Core networking equipment includes routers, switches and servers, often in a wall or floor cabinet. These devices are monitored by ourselves and Updata and turning off the power results in false alarms. This could result in your school incurring a charge for an engineer visit. Services Affected: Schools Internet, email and any service accessed via the internet Services Not Affected: All other school systems which do not require access to the internet When: 24th July 2018 - 5th September 2018 What You Need To Do: If there is no alternative to powering off the communications cabinet and core equipment then please contact the Service Desk to advise us in advance For More Information: Please contact the Service Desk on 0845 303 3003 or ict@norfolk.gov.uk 2. Hosted SIMS Unavailability - Friday, 27th July to Sunday, 29th July Capita have notified us that they will be performing an upgrade to the Norfolk hosted SIMS platform to ensure that your database is updated with the latest functionality and error fixes. During this time there will be a period of unavailability. This work will begin at 18:00 on Friday, 27th July to 22:00 on Sunday, 29th July We apologise in advance for any inconvenience that this may cause. For more information please contact the Service Desk on 0845 303 3003 or ict@norfolk.gov.uk 3. Service Desk opening hours – July 25th to August 31st To reflect the reduced demand on the Service Desk over the Summer holiday period, we will be changing the hours so that the desk closes an hour earlier. The desk will open at 08:00 hours, as it does now, but will close at 16:00. Normal opening hours of 08:00 to 17:00 will resume on Monday, September 3^rd. You will still be able to contact the Service Desk via email ict@norfolk.gov.uk and the ‘contact us’ webpage - https://ict.norfolk.gov.uk/contactus.aspx 4. Office 365 and Google email platforms As part of an internal audit on both platforms, work has been taking place on securing the platforms, due to an increase in the amount of phishing attempts taking place recently. More information on phishing and how to spot it can be found here This means recipients of your emails know that they have come from you and not a third person posing as you; it effectively blocks anyone using your email address or domain (schoolname.norfolk.sch.uk) for phishing purposes and reduces the potential of your email accounts/domain becoming blocked by a recipient’s mail server. 5. Planned upgrades over the Summer holiday period Over the summer period there will be an upgrade to the current version of Anycomms Plus, between August 6^th and 8^th. During this time there will be a period of downtime. The version of Netsweeper will be upgraded to the latest (version 6.0). Updata are currently in the process of building a test server so that testing can be carried out prior to it being rolled out to all schools. When we have a definitive date, we will communicate it on the news page of the website/Network Managers forum but we have made them aware of the exam result dates in advance to ensure there is no impact.

School ICT News Bulletin No. 276 - 23/07/2018

Published by ICT Services 4 Education

eBulletin Items

Powering off core network equipment over the Summer holiday period
Hosted SIMS Unavailability - Friday, 27th July to Sunday, 29th July
Service Desk opening hours – July 25th to August 31st
Office 365 and Google email platforms
Planned upgrades over the Summer holiday period

1. Powering off core network equipment over the Summer holiday period

We would like to ask schools to refrain from turning off the power to the core networking equipment over the forthcoming Summer holiday period. Core networking equipment includes routers, switches and servers, often in a wall or floor cabinet. These devices are monitored by ourselves and Updata and turning off the power results in false alarms. This could result in your school incurring a charge for an engineer visit.

Services Affected: Schools Internet, email and any service accessed via the internet

Services Not Affected: All other school systems which do not require access to the internet

When: 24th July 2018 - 5th September 2018

What You Need To Do:

If there is no alternative to powering off the communications cabinet and core equipment then please contact the Service Desk to advise us in advance

For More Information:

Please contact the Service Desk on 0845 303 3003 or ict@norfolk.gov.uk

2. Hosted SIMS Unavailability - Friday, 27th July to Sunday, 29th July

Capita have notified us that they will be performing an upgrade to the Norfolk hosted SIMS platform to ensure that your database is updated with the latest functionality and error fixes. During this time there will be a period of unavailability.

This work will begin at 18:00 on Friday, 27th July to 22:00 on Sunday, 29th July

We apologise in advance for any inconvenience that this may cause.

For more information please contact the Service Desk on 0845 303 3003 or ict@norfolk.gov.uk

3. Service Desk opening hours – July 25th to August 31st

To reflect the reduced demand on the Service Desk over the Summer holiday period, we will be changing the hours so that the desk closes an hour earlier. The desk will open at 08:00 hours, as it does now, but will close at 16:00.

Normal opening hours of 08:00 to 17:00 will resume on Monday, September 3^rd.

You will still be able to contact the Service Desk via email ict@norfolk.gov.uk and the ‘contact us’ webpage - https://ict.norfolk.gov.uk/contactus.aspx

4. Office 365 and Google email platforms

As part of an internal audit on both platforms, work has been taking place on securing the platforms, due to an increase in the amount of phishing attempts taking place recently. More information on phishing and how to spot it can be found here

This means recipients of your emails know that they have come from you and not a third person posing as you; it effectively blocks anyone using your email address or domain (schoolname.norfolk.sch.uk) for phishing purposes and reduces the potential of your email accounts/domain becoming blocked by a recipient’s mail server.

5. Planned upgrades over the Summer holiday period

Over the summer period there will be an upgrade to the current version of Anycomms Plus, between August 6^th and 8^th. During this time there will be a period of downtime.

The version of Netsweeper will be upgraded to the latest (version 6.0). Updata are currently in the process of building a test server so that testing can be carried out prior to it being rolled out to all schools. When we have a definitive date, we will communicate it on the news page of the website/Network Managers forum but we have made them aware of the exam result dates in advance to ensure there is no impact.