November 2007 Email Upgrade

See the IT @ IWU blog for the Latest status information on the e-mail upgrade.

IWU’s Office of Information Technology is planning an upgrade to your campus email. This upgrade provide a more reliable e-mail service and increase your quota space for  email (from 100 Mb to 250 Mb). If you have questions about this upgrade, please call or contact the IT Help Desk for additional information (309) 556 3900.

During the time of upgrade, access to your e-mail will be interrupted. This means if you use my.iwu.edu to check your email, you will not be able to send, receive or even view your email during the upgrade process.  If you use an email client (like Thunderbird, Eudora, Mac Mail, Entourage, Outlook, etc.) you will be able to see email that has been saved in your local folders. However, activities such as sending or receiving email or viewing email in folders on the mail server will be disrupted.

• WHEN will this upgrade  happen?
  We plan to turn off services at 5 pm on FRIDAY, November 16, 2007 and plan to return service by 5 am on SUNDAY, November 18, 2007.
  
  
• WILL I lose my email?
  No. After service is turned off, ALL your email messages will be backed-up and saved. After the upgrade, your email will be restored to the upgraded system.
  
  
• WHAT happens to email people send me while there is no email access?
  Our spam filter (Red Condor) will hold and spool all incoming email messages that are received during the time of upgrade. Once the upgrade is complete, Red Condor will deliver all those “held” messages to your email account. Because there will be tens of thousands of held messages, all your email may not appear instantaneously, but it WILL get delivered to you as quickly as possible.
  
  
• WILL my.IWU.edu still work? 
  YES!  The ONLY thing you will not have access to will be your email. You will still be able to login to my.iwu.edu and check info about your classes, the online directories, groups, calendars, etc. (just NOT your email).
  
  
• WHY is it necessary to interrupt email like this?
  Use of campus email has been increasing rapidly. Our current email server/s are nearing 100% capacity.  In order to provide more room for e-mail we need to move the campus email service to a new server with additional capacity. In order to do that, we must “stop” the flow of email, back-up all data (email), install the new server and the software that makes it work, then copy all the data to the new server and then verify the functionality of the new system. This will take between 36 and 38 hours to accomplish.
  
  
• WHAT if something important comes up and I really NEED to contact, send or receive email from someone? 
  Some options to consider include:
  - Are there alternative methods of communication you might be able to use such as telephone, IM (instant messaging), etc.?
  - Do you have an alternative email account (e.g. g-mail, yahoo mail, hotmail, insightbb, etc.)?

If you need additional assistance, please call the Office of Information Technology Help Desk at 309-556-3900, or or use the online support request form (on-campus or via campus proxy server only).