The PEAS team is pleased to recommend the upgrade to macOS Catalina 10.15 in the Enterprise.

All issues with Enterprise Services have been resolved. Prior to upgrading, please ensure you have the most recent version of enterprise apps that you use, like Citrix Workspace, Cisco VPN or TrendMicro Antivirus. The latest version of these applications are available in PEAS Self Service. Also verify the compatibility of any non-enterprise apps you use prior to upgrading. 32-bit applications are no longer supported on macOS Catalina. You can check if you’re running 32-bit apps in macOS Mojave before you download and install Catalina. From the Apple menu > About This Mac > System Report > Legacy Software or by goinig to https://roaringapps.com/.
 
We advise everyone upgrade and get the latest security features unless you have specialty software that is currently incompatible with 10.15.Keep in mind that Apple, and therefore Partners, only supports the current OS and two versions prior. With the release of macOS Catalina 10.15, the only other supported mac OSs are macOS Mojave 10.14 and macOS High Sierra 10.13. If you are running an out of date macOS, please view our webpage on how to Update Your Mac, or contact the Service Desk if you need assistance with an upgrade. Older Mac operating systems introduce risk to your data and the enterprise as they are not patched for security vulnerabilities, nor do they comply with Partners policies.

Please note: When upgrading to macOS Catalina 10.15, any folders in the root folder will be moved to /users/shared/relocated items.

Software Tested	Functionality	Notes
Crowdstrike 5.15.9504
Trend Micro 3.0.3078
Forescout 15.3.15303
Cisco AnyConnect 4.800175
Microsoft Office 16.29
Citrix Workspace 19.10.1.31		notes for setting Safari Preferences  https://rc.partners.org/kb/article/3585
EndNote X8 and X9		X8 and earlier: These are 32-bit and will not be compatible. X9: An update is required prior to upgrade.  See additional information
Crestron AirMedia 3.1.3
Kingston DTVP30 encrypted flash drives		Cannot unlock the Drive on Catalina. New App expected ~ November

The ERIS Non-Production patching of DIPR VM's ran longer than anticipated and may continued throughout the day on Thursday December 5th, 2019.

Server maintenance is was scheduled for this website on Saturday, December 7th, 2019 from 9:00AM to 7:00PM EDT. This website to be down for a short time during the maintenance window.

Applies to: All Production and Non-Production DIPR VM's, databases and systems

The ERIS Infrastructure team continued patching all Non-Production and Production VM's and Systems this week.

Impact

Our scheduled patching process for VM's and Systems will experience downtime when the database servers are patched when the ERIS proxy server is patched and again when the application VM's are patched. Each downtime should be short, however, applications could experience 3 outages during the maintenance window.

Service Level Reminders

The ERIS Infrastructure team will begin patching non-production VM's on Wednesday, December 4th starting at 3:00 pm and Production VM's on Saturday, December 7th starting at 9:00 am

• Non-production VMs -  Wednesday, December 4th from 3PM -10PM
• Production VMs -         Saturday, December 7th from 9AM -7PM

ERIS strives to keep all systems up to their most current and/or stable revisions. Please visit https://rc.partners.org/support-training/eris-service-level-agreement to review the full ERIS Service Level Agreement.

Server owners are responsible for maintaining the applications running on DIPR VMs and systems, ensuring the applications are patched and comply with Partners Information Security Practices and Policies. Server owners are responsible for the backup of critical configurations in case of a failure.

Please contact rcc@partners.org if you have any questions or concerns.

From Thursday, November 21, 2019 through Monday, December 2, 2019 at 8a.m., there will be limited List Manager (Lyris) support. The infrastructure will be supported, so if there are concerns with connection to https://researchlistadmin.partners.org or mail delivery, they will be addressed and resolved in the normal response time.

Requests for new lists and emails regarding additional support will be responded to starting December 2, 2019.

For answers to commonly-asked questions and requests, please refer to the following resources:

• Knowledge Base: https://rc.partners.org/kb/email-and-collaboration-tools/collaboration-tools/mailing-list-system
• Online Manual: http://lunar.lyris.com/help/lm_help/12.0/

The GitLab service (https://gitlab.partners.org/) has been restored after a major outage.

A major storage outage incident took place during a scheduled storage controller upgrade task. The incident affected GitLab as well as many other systems. The GitLab system was unavailable from approximately 9:50PM on Nov 10th until 10:50PM on Nov 11th. Due to the large amount of data in the GitLab repositories and other connected storage systems, the disk check and repair operation took much longer than expected, which caused the extended outage. The issue was subsequently compounded by a networking-related reconfiguration (on the storage-side).

At this point we do not believe that any data was affected. Please double-check your repositories, though!

We appreciate your continued usage and support of the service! We are working to make improvements of the service to avoid instabilities such as this one in the future.

If you any questions or concerns relating to this release, please email: rcc@partners.org.

ERIS Website Hosting Services are restored as of 12:30 PM EDT on Monday, November 11, 2019. Several research websites and services were unavailable beginning on Sunday, November 10, 2019 starting around 9PM.

The root of the problem is fixed and was related to scheduled storage and infrastructure maintenance. 

If you are the owner of a website, hosted database, storage or virtual server on ERIS infrastructure, we encourage you to check your connection and reboot if needed.

Contact the IS Service Desk to report any remaining issues or for assistance.
 

On Sunday, November 10, 2019, Dell Compellent SAN Controllers were replaced with new SC9000s. Many of our services rely on Compellent Storage Area Network (SAN) for underlying storage. This maintenance impacted connectivity to the storage (RFA, RFANFS, DIPR, etc.) being served out by this system.

As of Monday, November 11, 2019 at 9a.m. EDT, not all services are back online.

If you are the owner of a website, hosted database, storage or virtual server on ERIS infrastructure, we encourage you to check your connection and reboot if needed. Contact the IS Service Desk to report any remaining issues or for assistance.

Please check the Service Alerts for service-specific instructions and impact. Please make sure you subscribe to receive appropriate email notifications for the services you subscribe to: https://rc.partners.org/subscribe.

The https://rc.partners.org website was offline for a short period of time for infrastructure maintenance that took place Sunday, September 22 from 9:30p.m. to midnight EDT.

Please contact rcwebmaster@partners.org with any questions or concerns.

Applies to: iOS Users enrolled in MobileIron

The Partners MobileIron/EMM team has completed testing on latest GM build of iOS 13.1 Beta. Apple released iOS 13.0 on Thursday, 9/19 at around 1pm EDT and will release 13.1 on Tuesday, 9/24 around 1p.m.

• If you upgrade to iOS 13.1 from iOS 13.0, no action is required
• If you upgrade to iOS 13.1 from iOS 12, please note that you will be required to re-enter your Partners Email Password. A pop up will automatically appear that will take the you to the Settings App to re-enter your password.

If you accidentally hit “Cancel”, you can go to Settings > Passwords & Accounts > PARTNERS (OAUTH) to re-enter your Partners password.

Updated MobileIron enrollment instructions have been posted to the Knowledge Base 

IS Service Desk https://www.partners.org/ISServiceDesk 

BWH 617-732-5927      BWH-RICS 617-525-0848      CDHC 413-582-5005      DFCI 617-632-3399         
FALK 617-983-7454     LCC 857-307-4150                  MCL 781-416-8940        MGH 617-726-5085     
NHP 617-643-2020       NSMC 978-354-2014               NWH 617-243-6001       PCPO 857-282-5999     
PHH 617-726-0790       PHS 857-282-4357                   SRN 617-952-5555  
 

Applies to: All DIPR Servers

Production servers hosted by ERIS were patched on Saturday, September 28 starting at 9AM. If you are the owner of a server hosted by ERIS, we encourage you to connect to your server at the end of our maintenance, verify that your applications restart and reconnect to your database. 

The Discovery Informatics Platform for Research (DIPR) platform hosted by Enterprise Research IS is undergoing several essential upgrades in Fall 2019 to elevate security standards. These changes will include increased auditing, enabling SELinux on all systems and patching of the Linux OS on all servers on a monthly basis. The ERIS Infrastructure team will communicate each change two weeks before deploying. Please subscribe to receive DIPR communications and visit https://rc.partners.org/subscribe for more information. Non-production DIPR servers were patched in waves on Wednesdays in September. 

We understand that this is a significant change. We need your help to ensure an easy transition for your servers, applications and users. Learn more about the new DIPR Servers Monthly OS Patching Schedule.

Service Level Reminders
To ensure premium supportability, security and performance, ERIS strives to keep all systems up to their most current and/or stable revisions. Please visit https://rc.partners.org/sla to review the full ERIS Service Level Agreement.  

Server owners are responsible for maintaining the applications running on DIPR VMs systems and ensuring they are patched and comply with Partners Information Security Practices and Policies. Server owners are responsible for backup of critical configurations in case of a failure.

Please reach out to rcc@partners.org with any questions.

This website was offline for a brief period during the maintenance window for MySQL Server patching on Saturday, August 24 between 9:00a.m. - Noon. EDT. This website, https://rc.partners.org, was unavailable for a few minutes while the system is rebooted to apply patches.

Please contact rcwebmaster@partners.org if you have any questions or concerns.