Information Technology Services Advisory Page Status

All Systems Operational

About This Site

Our technology advisory page provides up-to-date information about the operations of Vancouver Island University's Information Technology systems and services. Scroll down for scheduled maintenance and incident history.

Please follow us on twitter @VIU_IT to receive updates regarding service outages and scheduled maintenance.

Computer Accounts and Files Operational

Email Operational

Network: Internet, Wireless, and Wired Operational

Printing Operational

Telephone System Operational

Websites and Learning Tools Operational

VIULearn (D2L) Operational

Library Services Operational

University Website (viu.ca) Operational

InVIU Operational

Student Self-service: My Student Record Operational

Administrative Systems Operational

Student Records (SRS) Operational

Financial Records System (FRS) Operational

HR/Payroll/Employee & Applicant Portal (Stargarden) Operational

Admin Systems Portal (VIUWeb) Operational

Operational

Degraded Performance

Partial Outage

Major Outage

Maintenance

Scheduled Maintenance

Maintenance: Wireless Updates; Service Interruption Aug 9, 18:00-20:00 PDT

What is impacted: Wireless Access – All Campuses; Technicians will be performing updates to the wireless network for all campuses. (VIU-Secure, VIU-Guest and Eduroam)
Level of impact: Service Interruption. During the maintenance window wireless connections may disconnect multiple times. Each time may be for up to 10 minutes, your device should reconnect once each outage ends.
Timing: 6pm to 8pm, Tuesday, August 9.
Preparation: If you are working on Campus using wireless, please save any documents/data prior to the start of the Maintenance window. If you are disconnected while connected to VIU-Secure or VIU-Guest Service, please wait a few minutes and the service may resume, or try reconnecting to the wireless network after a short period of time. Wired network services will not be affected, please connect to a wired network jack if available in your area.
Posted on Aug 3, 15:23 PDT

Maintenance: Server Restarts; Service Interruption impacting employees and students Aug 10, 06:00-08:00 PDT

What is impacted: All VIU technology including email, files, VIULearn, printing, internet, etc. A complete list of services is included below.
Level of impact: Service Interruption. All services listed will be unavailable for up to 15 minutes during the maintenance window.
Timing: 6am to 8am, Wednesday.
Description: All servers are receiving monthly updates and must be restarted.
Preparation: Please close these systems and all applications connected to these systems before 6:00am. Do not use these systems during the maintenance period.

Services that may be unavailable for up to 15 minutes between 6am to 8am:
- Internet access on campus
- VIULearn online courses (D2L)
- Managed Print
- Employee Printing
- Employee and Student U Drives, My Documents and Desktop Files
- Department Share Drives
- Website logins (including VIULearn, VIUTube, VIUBlogs, VIUSpace, InVIU, HRIS and isapp.viu.ca sites)
- VIU databases (including Checkbox Survey, Research Office app, StarRez, Tableau)
Posted on Aug 3, 15:16 PDT

Maintenance: VIU Websites; No Service Interruption Aug 10, 10:00-15:00 PDT

What is impacted: VIU Websites. Our Web team performs updates to our Drupal Web Content Management System.
Level of impact: No Interruption. While no outage is expected, saving content during this timeframe within the Drupal platform may be slower.
Timing: 10am to 3pm, every Wednesday
Preparation: None
Posted on Aug 3, 15:07 PDT

Maintenance: Server Restarts; Service Interruption impacting employees and students Aug 10, 17:00-19:00 PDT

What is impacted: All VIU technology including email, files, printing, internet, etc. A complete list of services is included below.
Level of impact: Service Interruption. All services listed will be unavailable for up to 15 minutes during the maintenance window.
Timing: 5pm to 7pm, Wednesday.
Description: All servers are receiving monthly updates and must be restarted.
Preparation: Please close these systems and all applications connected to these systems before 5:00pm. Do not use these systems during the maintenance period.

Services that may be unavailable for up to 15 minutes between 5pm to 7pm:
- VIU email (including Outlook, webmail and public folders)
- VIU websites (including isapp.viu.ca sites, InVIU, viuresidences.ca, stuweb.viu.ca)
Posted on Aug 3, 15:23 PDT

Past Incidents

Aug 9, 2022

No incidents reported today.

Aug 8, 2022

No incidents reported.

Aug 7, 2022

No incidents reported.

Aug 6, 2022

Maintenance: Power Outage - Nanaimo Campus; Service Interruption

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Aug 6, 12:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Aug 6, 08:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted: Power Outage in B193, 200, 205, 300 and higher (with the exception of building 350). Facilities is performing maintenance on the Nanaimo campus electrical system.
Level of impact: Service Interruption. All buildings listed above will experience approximately 3 or 4 intervals of intermittent power loss of up to 5 minutes per interval during the maintenance window. In the event of equipment failure, the power may be affected for a longer time.
Timing: 8am to 12pm, Saturday, August 6.
Preparation: Before leaving for the weekend, employees in the above buildings should save their work and shut down their computers. When returning to work after the outage, please remember to power back on your computer. If working over the weekend we recommend saving often, and working on low impact tasks. When the power goes out any unsaved work will be lost.
Aug 3, 15:20 PDT

Maintenance: IT Client and Ticket Portals; Service Interruption

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Aug 6, 00:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Aug 5, 21:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted: IT Client and Ticket Portals; Every Friday our vendor performs maintenance on the servers hosting the IT Ticket System (https://ithelp.viu.ca) and the IT Client Portal (https://technology.viu.ca).
Level of impact: Service Interruption. Employees will be unable to access the above sites/services during the maintenance window.
Timing: 9pm to 12:00 am, every Friday.
Preparation: None required. If you need to submit an IT Request during the maintenance window please e-mail ithelp@viu.ca. Once the maintenance is complete, an IT request will automatically be created based on your e-mail and you will be e-mailed a ticket number.
Aug 3, 15:07 PDT

Aug 5, 2022

Aug 4, 2022

PARTIAL PHONE OUTAGE impacting employees and students at Nanaimo campus.

Resolved - This incident is now resolved.
Aug 4, 16:41 PDT

Update - We are continuing to monitor for any further issues.
Aug 3, 14:15 PDT

Monitoring - The Nortel system is now fully on line. All Nortel locals should be able to send and receive calls.
We will continue to keep a close eye on it, until 4:30pm today.
Aug 3, 14:02 PDT

Investigating - VIU and vendor technicians are working together to investigate the equipment failure in our Nortel phone system. A potential fix was deployed last night, and initial testing was positive. However this morning the Nortel system failed again.

We are continuing to work with our vendor to restore full service to the impacted locals.

Approximately 240 Nanaimo campus phone locals and lines are out of service.
Impacted phones will have no dial tone when you pick up the hand set. External calls into these lines will go to voicemail if there is one for that local. Calls into locals without a voicemail will either receive a busy signal, or no signal at all.

Not all Nortel locals are impacted, and Mitel phones are not impacted by the this incident.

Resolution time: Unknown.

Updates: Next update will be by 2pm, Wednesday, August 3.
Aug 3, 09:55 PDT

Aug 3, 2022

Maintenance: VIU Websites; No Service Interruption

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Aug 3, 15:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Aug 3, 10:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted: VIU Websites. Our Web team performs updates to our Drupal Web Content Management System.
Level of impact: No Interruption. While no outage is expected, saving content during this timeframe within the Drupal platform may be slower.
Timing: 10am to 3pm, every Wednesday
Preparation: None
Jul 27, 11:20 PDT

PARTIAL PHONE OUTAGE impacting employees and students at Nanaimo campus.

Resolved - Working overnight a fix has been put into effect, and service has been restored.
All Nortel Lines are once again operational.
Aug 3, 08:12 PDT

Update - We are continuing to investigate this challenge with our vendor.

Resolution time is currently unknown.

Next update will be by 9:30am Wednesday, August 3.
Aug 2, 16:31 PDT

Investigating - Due to a possible equipment failure in our Nortel phones system approximately 240 Nanaimo locals and lines our out of service.
We have reached out to our support vendor, and are working together to investigate.
Impacted phones will have no Dial Tone. External calls into these lines will either receive a busy signal, or no signal at all.

Mitel phones are not impacted by the this incident.

Resolution time is currently unknown.

Next update will be by 4:30pm today.
Aug 2, 14:43 PDT

Aug 2, 2022

Maintenance: Windows 10 Software Update; Computer Restart

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Aug 2, 01:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Jul 30, 01:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted:Employee Windows 10 Computers; Windows 10 updates are being deployed to employee computers.
Level of impact: Computer restart. Installations and restarts will only occur during maintenance windows.
Timing: Beginning at 1am, Saturday, July 30. Continuing until all workstations have been updated.
Preparation: Software updates can cause computers to restart. We recommend that you save and close your work at the end of every day then log off or restart your computer. Do not shut down your computer systems or they will not receive the updates. Your system may not update the first night and may update any of the following nights depending on update load.
Jul 27, 13:50 PDT

Aug 1, 2022

Maintenance: VIU Email; Degraded Performance

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Aug 1, 21:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Aug 1, 19:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted: VIU Email Services; Technicians are installing security updates on our email servers.
Level of impact: Degraded Performance; VIU Email continue to be sent/received, but may experience small delays during the maintenance window. No mail will be lost.
Timing: 7pm to 9pm, Monday, August 1.
Preparation: None required. If you experience a delay in accessing email, please wait and try again.
Jul 27, 13:53 PDT

Jul 31, 2022

No incidents reported.

Jul 30, 2022

Maintenance: IT Client and Ticket Portals; Service Interruption

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Jul 30, 00:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Jul 29, 21:00 PDT

Jul 29, 2022

Email issues impacting VIU employees

Resolved - As of 4pm yesterday the vendor was reporting a return to normal email and spam flow.
Jul 29, 07:58 PDT

Investigating - VIU's anti-spam service is experiencing vendor side challenges.
Employee to employee emails are not impacted.
Email to, or from, external addresses may be delayed up to a few hours. No email will be lost, only delayed.

The vendor is currently working to restore normal service.

Resolution Time: Currently Unknown.
Next Update: 4pm.
Jul 28, 13:46 PDT

Jul 28, 2022

Jul 27, 2022

Maintenance: VIU Websites; No Service Interruption

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Jul 27, 15:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Jul 27, 10:00 PDT

Maintenance: Server Restarts; Service Interruption impacting employees and students

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Jul 27, 07:01 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Jul 27, 06:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted: VIU Services including wordpress.viu.ca, and some services internal to IT. All VIU Linux servers are receiving monthly updates and must be restarted. For the VIU community, wordpress.viu.ca would be most visible service impacted.
Level of impact: Service Interruption. All services listed will be unavailable for up to 15 minutes during the maintenance window.
Timing: 6am to 7am, Wednesday, July 27.
Description: All Linux servers are receiving monthly updates and must be restarted.
Preparation: Please sign out of and close these systems and all applications connected to these systems before 6am. Do not use these systems during the maintenance period.
Jul 20, 13:58 PDT

Jul 26, 2022

Maintenance: Software Update; Computer Restart

Completed - The scheduled maintenance has been completed.
Jul 26, 01:00 PDT

In progress - Scheduled maintenance is currently in progress. We will provide updates as necessary.
Jul 23, 01:00 PDT

Scheduled - What is impacted: Student computers ; upgrading Microsoft Office to Office 2019.
Level of impact: Computer restart. Installations and restarts will only occur during maintenance windows.
Timing: Beginning 1am, Saturday July 23. Continuing until all computers updated.
Preparation: Software updates can cause computers to restart. We recommend that you save and close your work at the end of every day then log off or restart your computer. Computers may not update the first night, and update on a following night.
Jul 20, 14:10 PDT