Illustration of firewall hardware upgrade text.

Reminder: Firewall hardware upgrade January 3, 2023

The University’s firewall hardware will be upgraded on Tuesday, January 3, 2023. It will cause University systems, including external interdependent systems, and internet access, to be unavailable from 5 a.m. to 8:30 a.m. on January 3.  

 

Examples of affected systems:

 

  • Internet Connection (wired and wireless on-campus)
  • VPN
  • Food Services
  • UwinCard Access
  • Blackboard Learning Management System (anticipated availability 9 a.m.) 
  • UWinsite Student 

 

Examples of cloud-based systems that will not be affected, when accessing the systems from off-campus: 

 

  • UWinsite Finance
  • D2L’s Brightspace (in earlier messaging Brightspace was listed as an affected system, this system will be accessible from off-campus or outside of the UWindsor network).
  • Microsoft 365 (Outlook, Teams, OneDrive, SharePoint, etc.)  

 

The firewall is designed to prevent unauthorized access to or from our campus network, and the hardware upgrade ensures the infrastructure that IT Services supports remains stable. 

 

The maintenance period should not extend beyond 8:30 a.m. However, in the event that unexpected issues arise, extended outages may occur for some systems. Communication will be shared with the affected system users if necessary, and updates will be posted on the Information Technology Services’ System Status and Notification webpage.