IT Department Discusses System Changes and Student Concerns
Brad Clancy
Issue date: 2/3/10 Section: News
We all lost internet connectivity during the storm, and there have been a host of e-mail issues since the switch to the new mail system. So Horizons sat down with Pete Nigh from the IT department, and asked him a few questions.
[Horizons:] "Let's start with what everyone wants to know: What's up with the e-mail filters?"
[Nigh:] "Ever since the switch [to the new mail system], we have been working with Microsoft to get the e-mail filters working properly, but ultimately it's not in our hands. One thing that happened with the switch, unfortunately, was that we didn't advertise it nearly as well as we should have. We are working on getting no filter on ERAU emails, and hopefully that will solve our forwarding issues. All the old e-mail will be forwarded now until graduation."
[Horizons:] "A few of us were also wondering about the internet being down during the storm. What was up with that?"
[Nigh:] "The outages could be expected-our internet comes from a dedicated pipe through Qwest. So does all the internet service in Prescott. No matter what your ISP is, it is from this pipe to Phoenix. This is a rural area mainly, not a lot of redundancy. We were actually lucky to have as little downtime as we did."
[Horizons:] "Got any projects in the works?"
[Nigh:] "We are working on a better system for student records; hopefully it will make the online stuff a little more user-friendly. Also keep your ears open, we are scheduling a meeting with the students for sometime soon."
[Horizons:] "Any IT advice for the students?"
[Nigh:] "I would caution those with wireless routers that while yes, it is OK for them to use such routers, the routers should be configured so as to not be able to hand out wireless addresses. Otherwise it could cause interference to the school networks. Also students should be discouraged from torrenting and pirating. Whenever publishers or record labels put out sniffer programs, they send Embry-Riddle mail about it, and we have to shut down the ports it occurred on. And that makes our internet service more difficult."
Thanks to IT, we should have a fully functional e-mail system very soon, along with good internet connectivity.
[Horizons:] "Let's start with what everyone wants to know: What's up with the e-mail filters?"
[Nigh:] "Ever since the switch [to the new mail system], we have been working with Microsoft to get the e-mail filters working properly, but ultimately it's not in our hands. One thing that happened with the switch, unfortunately, was that we didn't advertise it nearly as well as we should have. We are working on getting no filter on ERAU emails, and hopefully that will solve our forwarding issues. All the old e-mail will be forwarded now until graduation."
[Horizons:] "A few of us were also wondering about the internet being down during the storm. What was up with that?"
[Nigh:] "The outages could be expected-our internet comes from a dedicated pipe through Qwest. So does all the internet service in Prescott. No matter what your ISP is, it is from this pipe to Phoenix. This is a rural area mainly, not a lot of redundancy. We were actually lucky to have as little downtime as we did."
[Horizons:] "Got any projects in the works?"
[Nigh:] "We are working on a better system for student records; hopefully it will make the online stuff a little more user-friendly. Also keep your ears open, we are scheduling a meeting with the students for sometime soon."
[Horizons:] "Any IT advice for the students?"
[Nigh:] "I would caution those with wireless routers that while yes, it is OK for them to use such routers, the routers should be configured so as to not be able to hand out wireless addresses. Otherwise it could cause interference to the school networks. Also students should be discouraged from torrenting and pirating. Whenever publishers or record labels put out sniffer programs, they send Embry-Riddle mail about it, and we have to shut down the ports it occurred on. And that makes our internet service more difficult."
Thanks to IT, we should have a fully functional e-mail system very soon, along with good internet connectivity.
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