Teams
An Update on Updates!
12.July.2010 22:04 Filed in: Tech Tips
During the last two weeks of July 2009, we installed
30 new Apple Xserves, and we completely re-configured
the relationship between users (people), clients
(regular computers you use), and servers (servers!).
At this time, we also set-up two dedicated wiki and
blog servers--one that is designed to serve the
public (teacher blogs for parents, classroom projects
with students, etc.) and one that is designed to be
used collaboratively by teams (to support teaming).
When we installed the servers, the operating system was at 10.5.7. Shortly after the school year started, we upgraded all thirty servers to 10.5.8. Then, Apple released 10.6, Snow Leopard. This type of update was too significant to perform over a weekend. (It is taking us nearly three weeks to do during the summer!) In the past, we’ve typically left servers running with whatever operating system it was using when it was originally set-up. Now, with new servers in place along with lots of new clients, we have upgraded the servers to Snow Leopard. Specifically, each of our Mac servers will be running OS 10.6.4 by the end of this week.
We’re excited that by the end of this week, all of our open directory and file servers will have been upgraded. We have already upgraded the iChat, wiki, and teams servers, yet there is additional work that has been required on each of these before we can be fully up and running. So, here’s the run down on exactly where these servers are at right now:
iChat
After an extensive period of tweaking settings and testing, we are pleased to officially announce that iChat is back open. It seems to be working just fine with both text and video chats working. iChat is open right now as this is written, so chat away!
Teams
The teams.ccsd21.org wiki server that is used by teams is also working, but we’re needing to go through and reset permissions for each group. We had worked extensively with Apple prior to this upgrade in order to determine what type of issues we may have with blogs and wikis. Even from inside Apple, we heard very different reports on how this update might go. Overall, this update went well, but we are having to reset permissions on each of the approximately 200 wikis that we have in use for teams in District 21. We hope to have this work done later this month. Once this work is done, we will ask iTech teachers to go in to Active Directory and update which staff members are in which groups. When this work is done, everyone will be able to be a part of whatever teams they are a part of for the 2010-2011 school year! We do thank teachers for their patience as we work through this process for the first time.
Wikis
The wiki.ccsd21.org wiki and blog server has seen the same issues as the teams.ccsd21.org server. Here, though, there will be additional testing that we are undertaking as we look to potentially utilize Active Directory to manage the users on the wiki server. (Prior to now, we have had to enter each user individually on this server. We have done so in order to meet our web page policy that requires us not to post the first and last names of students.) Individual wikis and blogs will come back online as we can (with sites in which only staff post being up first), and we will let the individuals running those sites know when they are up.
When we installed the servers, the operating system was at 10.5.7. Shortly after the school year started, we upgraded all thirty servers to 10.5.8. Then, Apple released 10.6, Snow Leopard. This type of update was too significant to perform over a weekend. (It is taking us nearly three weeks to do during the summer!) In the past, we’ve typically left servers running with whatever operating system it was using when it was originally set-up. Now, with new servers in place along with lots of new clients, we have upgraded the servers to Snow Leopard. Specifically, each of our Mac servers will be running OS 10.6.4 by the end of this week.
We’re excited that by the end of this week, all of our open directory and file servers will have been upgraded. We have already upgraded the iChat, wiki, and teams servers, yet there is additional work that has been required on each of these before we can be fully up and running. So, here’s the run down on exactly where these servers are at right now:
iChat
After an extensive period of tweaking settings and testing, we are pleased to officially announce that iChat is back open. It seems to be working just fine with both text and video chats working. iChat is open right now as this is written, so chat away!
Teams
The teams.ccsd21.org wiki server that is used by teams is also working, but we’re needing to go through and reset permissions for each group. We had worked extensively with Apple prior to this upgrade in order to determine what type of issues we may have with blogs and wikis. Even from inside Apple, we heard very different reports on how this update might go. Overall, this update went well, but we are having to reset permissions on each of the approximately 200 wikis that we have in use for teams in District 21. We hope to have this work done later this month. Once this work is done, we will ask iTech teachers to go in to Active Directory and update which staff members are in which groups. When this work is done, everyone will be able to be a part of whatever teams they are a part of for the 2010-2011 school year! We do thank teachers for their patience as we work through this process for the first time.
Wikis
The wiki.ccsd21.org wiki and blog server has seen the same issues as the teams.ccsd21.org server. Here, though, there will be additional testing that we are undertaking as we look to potentially utilize Active Directory to manage the users on the wiki server. (Prior to now, we have had to enter each user individually on this server. We have done so in order to meet our web page policy that requires us not to post the first and last names of students.) Individual wikis and blogs will come back online as we can (with sites in which only staff post being up first), and we will let the individuals running those sites know when they are up.
