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At Bristol, we only take our system offline once a year, for three days at the end of July or beginning of August. During that time, we make our Test environment available to staff and students, with a copy of the Production environment on it. We make it clear that this is "read only", and any changes made to it will be lost. Hanrahan Highland On 4 April 2014 15:33, Ceri Richards <[log in to unmask]> wrote: > Hi Kate, > > We've gone down the read-only clone route a few times during major > upgrades which have involved backend OS or DB overhauls. So leave the > old/existing environment as is, re-brand as read-only and migrate the data > to a new set of servers. As we're fully virtualised this isn't too much > hassle, although the investment time-wise is high so I wouldn't offer it > unless it was for a major update or backend overhaul. > > Hope this helps. > > Ceri Richards > Senior Systems Administrator > IT Services > University of South Wales > Room J147, Johnstown Building > R [log in to unmask] > c +44 0(1443) 654138 > > -----Original Message----- > From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [mailto: > [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Flynn, Sharon > Sent: 03 April 2014 14:19 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Re: Upgrades and maintenance - what do you do? > > Good question Kate. Like others who have responded, this has also been an > issue for us. It's less problematic since we went Managed Hosted, but we > still need one time during the summer when we can upgrade. > > We schedule dates well in advance and let our community know these. Last > year we went with a Friday in mid-July, which is probably the least busy > period of the year. Blackboard came offline on Friday evening and was back > up and working by Saturday afternoon. Like others have suggested, we > advertise a slightly longer period than expected, just in case. > > > > Dr Sharon Flynn > Assistant Director, Centre for Excellence in Learning and Teaching > National University of Ireland, Galway > > Phone: 091 493481 > http://about.me/sharonlflynn > > > > -----Original Message----- > From: Blackboard/Courseinfo userslist [mailto: > [log in to unmask]] On Behalf Of Kate Wright > Sent: 03 April 2014 12:36 > To: [log in to unmask] > Subject: Upgrades and maintenance - what do you do? > > Hi all > > Like everyone else I'm sure, it's getting harder and harder to find time > to take Blackboard out of service for maintenance, upgrades etc. Here in > Aber we have permission for 2 days in the Christmas vacation, 2 days at > Easter and 4 in the summer. However, with more distance learning, CPD etc > etc, the concept of teaching/learning not happening vacations is starting > to look a little old fashioned. > > I wondered whether you'd be willing to let us know what you do about > arranging downtime on your systems, and whether anyone does anything clever > to allow read-only access? Happy to summarise responses for the list if > people would find that helpful. > > Many thanks in advance > Kate W > > ----- > Kate Wright > E-learning Development Officer > Aberystwyth University > > [log in to unmask] > ----- > -- Hanrahan Highland E-learning Support Telephone: +44 (0)117 33 14405 Education Support Unit, University of Bristol, 8-10 Berkeley Square, Bristol, BS8 1HH