What's up with ITCS?
Wolverine Access was down for much of the first day of class, and now CTools kicks me to an outage page that doesn't even load. Is anybody in a position to share what's going on?
(Note: I didn't mark this OT because it's about Michigan, but it's obviously not about sports so a mod can change it if that's appropriate. I'm too lazy to look at the guidelines right now.)
September 5th, 2012 at 11:23 PM ^
September 5th, 2012 at 11:25 PM ^
CTools works fine for me right now.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:44 PM ^
and they've (just?) announced a restart at 5 am tomorrow.
i thought maybe somebody with a work-study gig would have some insight into what's going on.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:27 PM ^
ITCS has been consistently dropping the ball this week.
First the wolverineaccess outage.. on the first day of class. I actually know some people who had classes where if they did not show up for the first day, they were auto-dropped from the class and the "course room" section from the online course guide said "TBA" for them - they couldn't find their class and I think they may have been auto-dropped!
Then, the ctools outages. This is especially frustrating because in the first few days of class, you may need to post some syllabus material/homework for the students and with ctools down, we had to go through that extra step of printing out 95 copies of a syllabus and a homework assignment that could have been avoided if ctools was up.
And lastly, the CAEN/ITCS merger has made it so that in order to enter any CAEN computer, you need to go to a *nonexistant* URL that they provided on some placards and CHANGE your kerberos password. Since their link was nonexistant, I just had to do a simple google search.
But still, wtf. Total infrastructure fail on their part.
September 6th, 2012 at 10:30 AM ^
The upper echelons of the Michigan administration have never been known for their organization prowess. Check any applicant who got their decision in May or something. It funnels down to the lower levels, like ITS.
September 6th, 2012 at 1:51 PM ^
That's a ridiculous statement. The organizational prowess of any major University is extensive. Just because someone wasn't accepted in the first round of applicants doesn't mean there's a lack of organization.
September 6th, 2012 at 2:39 PM ^
Ridiculous, and yet, it is true.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:29 PM ^
I miss CTools. Currently I am trapped in Carmen hell south of the border. Bleh to your interface. Bleh!
September 6th, 2012 at 2:15 AM ^
I always wondered where in the world Carmen was. Turns out, south of the border.
September 6th, 2012 at 5:58 PM ^
Just ask Bizet.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:32 PM ^
They got rid of CTools? WHAT THE HELL IS GOING ON OUT THERE?
September 5th, 2012 at 11:32 PM ^
CAEN has been steadily getting crappier since my sophomore year, when they were actually useful and mostly functional. I don't know if they're hiring less staff or less competent staff, but I'm guessing they're just giving far fewer fucks because students don't rage enough when they screw up.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:33 PM ^
What the dick.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:33 PM ^
THIS IS OT!!!!!!! haha
September 5th, 2012 at 11:39 PM ^
September 5th, 2012 at 11:50 PM ^
I'm not even that old, but I do remember the CRISP lady and practicing my phone dialing speed so I could access registration as quickly as possible at my appointed time and get the classes I wanted. I'm sure some old fart will come on here and talk about standing in line with punch cards.
September 6th, 2012 at 3:00 PM ^
...I hated the dial-in CRISP. It was so slow going through all of the menus and having to listen to everything being spoken out. I really prefered the older version where you had an appointment at one of the computer labs and were able to click through everything at light speed if you knew what you were doing.
September 5th, 2012 at 11:51 PM ^
September 6th, 2012 at 9:23 AM ^
The deal is staffing is cycled through the University. ITS is known to be hard on staffing and the best try to escape to other areas of the University. I supervise a pair of refugees from ITS and they're amazing programmers. They're also kind of like rescued puppies and still surprised I don't beat them, make them come in at 3 am on Saturday to do server upgrades, and things like that. You have to speak in a soothing voice still or they'll piddle on the floor in terror.
Meanwhile another manager in my group, who has clearly shown he is not promotable beyond his current rank, just got hired by ITS to spearhead a big project. We all expect it to fail horribly and end with flames in a career ending fashion. Probably not for him since he knows how to work the system, but some senior programmer is likely getting screwed on that one.
Basically all the technical staff who can't hack it in an area where they are directly answerable to the Provost, a Department Chair, etc, flee off to ITS and find some layer of bureaucracy to hide in. They form a clique of retards who lurk in the halls of Arbor Lakes and basically kill anything they touch. They tend to avoid travelling onto campus or exposing themselves as accountable in anyway, but believe me they're lurking up there.
That's why it used to be ITD, then ITCS, and now ITS. They change the name every five years or so and blame all the failures on the past organization. Escaping accountabilty through meetings and reorgs is the ITx way.
September 6th, 2012 at 8:38 AM ^
it is ITS now. And you probably received three emails on the topic from the U. In fact, I can't believe you created this post.
September 6th, 2012 at 8:49 AM ^
seems like you're just trolling, but what's in the emails you're talking about?
September 6th, 2012 at 9:18 AM ^
Imagine, someone not being able to keep the acronyms straight. In fact, as punishment let's demand that the OP to write a paragraph on each of the following and demonstrate his or her understanding of the differences between MAIS, ITD, ITS, ITCS, MTS, CIO, MDC, MACC, ITCOM, & CAEN.
September 6th, 2012 at 9:25 AM ^
But you can strike ITCS from that list, it no longer exists.
September 6th, 2012 at 5:02 PM ^
Yeah? Trying going to the ITS website, and then look at the web address. MWUAHAHAHA IT LIVES
Wait, you're probably in ITS yourself and you're going to quickly fix it and make me look like a fool.
QUICK SOMEONE TEACH ME TO SCREENGRAB
September 6th, 2012 at 9:15 AM ^
First and foremost, ITS Service Status Page. Go there and see if the service outage is global or just you. Secondly if there is something wrong with just your computer, connect into Virtual Sites and do your business on that (also great if you need to use a stats program, just make sure to save it to your AFS space as the desktop/my documents is purged when the connection closes).
Secondly, Wolverine Access and CTOOLS goes down this time every year. Wolverine Access will likely crash around the Add/Drop deadline or at least experience a sevice slowdown. CTOOLS will slowdown or crash around fall study break and finals (finals are worse than fall study break). This cycle will repeat during the Winter term.
This is for a number of reasons. Namely the Sakai Project (CTOOLS) appears to have been written by crack abusing monkeys. WolverineAcess is run on a tight budget by MAIS. This is compunded by the fact that the faculty members demands for computing power exceed the rate at which funding is provided to buy new hardware. Also ITCS does not have the best management, to say the least. So CTOOLS and WA are left to suffer. It's pretty much an accepted fact of life, to the point where certain types of staff are given special links to let us use them and they just shut down the front page logins.
Most professors know this and plan for it. If you're a student, print your schedule and book list off prior to Labor Day.
September 6th, 2012 at 9:26 AM ^
Tuesday, when it went down, was also the time approval deadline for all biweekly employees. All the backend systems continued to work but the front-end (Wolverine Access) was overloaded.
September 6th, 2012 at 4:11 PM ^
I remember when we hade the CRISP lady on the phone. You kids today!
September 6th, 2012 at 5:00 PM ^
Oh honey, I CRISPED in person.
And let me tell you something, it may seem now like an archaic system, but if a class was closed and your schedule was suddenly screwed, the right experiences, knowledgable, calm CRISP person was a lifesaver.