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Note: Network Support is a collaborative effort between the EITS and the departments.
In a reasonable time period after the execution of a Memorandum of Understanding, EITS staff will provide the Departmental Network Liaison (DNL) with a document which includes:
- An assessment of the unit’s data closets addressing environmental conditions, including power and HVAC, UPS status, general organization, physical security, etc., along with a recommended remediation plan for any issues found.
- The results of a physical security assessment of the Main Data Closet (MDF) and/or Unit Data Closets (IDF) and a remediation plan if necessary.
EITS will coordinate with the DNL to develop a schedule to replace legacy equipment.
EITS will be responsible for any efforts required to replace malfunctioning hardware under the maintenance agreement or warranty with the equipment vendor.
EITS maintains a stock of spare parts and equipment that may be utilized for immediate replacement and restoration of service in case of hardware failure. This is done on a best-effort basis as it is not financially feasible to maintain a completely redundant inventory of spare equipment.
Issues will be classified as follows:
- Severe: Loss of service or severely degraded network performance that affects an entire unit, an entire building, or a critical application.
- Moderate: Loss of service or severely degraded network performance that affects a building floor or an important application.
- Routine: Issues not significantly impacting production services.
On-site support is available between 7:30 a.m. and 5 p.m. Monday through Friday on normal working days.
After hours and weekend support is available by calling (706) 542-0320.
Help Desk support is available from 7:30 a.m. and 6:30 p.m. Monday through Friday and Sunday from 1:30 p.m. to 6:30 p.m. The Help Desk is closed on Saturdays.
The Help Desk closes at 5 p.m. Friday before home football days and is not available on the day of home football games. On-site support may be severely restricted on those days.
Response time during normal business hours is:
- Severe: Upon receipt of call.
- Moderate: Within one hour of receipt of call.
- Routine: Within one business day of receipt of call or as scheduled with the unit.
On-call support after hours is available for all severe and moderate problems.
EITS support personnel must have access to the covered switching equipment in the unit’s facilities for non-working hours maintenance windows and after hours support. This will require that EITS either have keys to the building and data closet(s) or that personnel with access will meet EITS on site as needed. If EITS cannot gain access to the equipment, the issue will be addressed the next business day.
If multiple units are experiencing network problems and all technical resources within EITS have been exhausted, support will be prioritized based upon the number of users impacted.
- If network problems exist involving unsupported network equipment (e.g. unit-owned firewalls), EITS will assume ownership of the problem until it can be shown conclusively that the problem is due to the unsupported equipment.
- Once this determination has been made, EITS staff will be available to the unit’s IT staff to ensure that any changes to the EITS supported network equipment can be made as necessary to resolve the issue.
Routine maintenance is performed outside of normal working hours.
The unit’s DNL will be notified of any planned routine maintenance at least 48 hours in advance. If this routine maintenance will cause disruptions to any planned activities, the maintenance will be rescheduled.
All switch configurations will be evaluated for adherence to EITS best practices and UGA Information Security policies. Any issues will be corrected after consultation with the DNL.
Firmware and software updates will be applied to the unit’s switches as released by the vendor as required for adherence to security policies and best practices.
For security, support, and network integrity reasons access to the MDF must be strictly managed by EITS.
EITS will work with units having equipment in the MDF to address these issues and develop solutions that will ensure the integrity and security of EITS equipment. If EITS and the unit determines that moving non-EITS equipment is not practical, the unit will be responsible for funding security devices for the EITS equipment.
In order to maintain network integrity and provide support for the unit’s network equipment covered under a Memorandum of Understanding, access to the IDF(s) must be strictly managed by EITS.
EITS will work with units having non-network equipment in the IDF to address these issues and develop solutions that will ensure the integrity and security of the equipment covered under this agreement. If EITS and the unit determine that moving non-covered equipment is not practical, the unit will be responsible for funding security devices for the covered network equipment.
- Unit IT staff will not be allowed to log in other than read-only access, configure, or modify in any manner the switches or other network equipment covered under this agreement.
- Unit IT staff will not be allowed to add, move, or remove patch cables in the MDF or IDF closets.
Change management will follow the standard EITS change management process (available upon request).
The DNL has access to all change management logs that pertain to this contract upon request.
The DNL will be included in change management discussions that are not part of the standard EITS change management policy and will be informed prior to the change.
Metrics and Reporting are available at the request of the DNL.