Systems Maintenance

Information Technology Services: Associate Vice President for Information Technology

Last Revised: 12/16/14

Title: Change Management Policy

Applicable: ITS Staff

Contacts: IT Service Center ext. 3277

Background: In order to better inform and prepare the campus community for routine maintenance of campus systems and the network, it has become necessary to create a reoccurring weekly maintenance period during which such changes will be made.

Policy: Information Technology Services reserves Wednesday mornings from midnight to 7am, and Saturday mornings from 6am to 10am to perform system and network maintenance.

Guidelines:

  • The office of Information Technology Services reserves the following times each week for system and network maintenance:
    • Wednesday mornings from midnight to 7am; and
    • Saturday mornings from 6am to 10am.
  • The Chief Information Officer must approve any planned service outage scheduled outside the weekly maintenance windows.
  • Planned changes that may disrupt any campus information service must be documented with a Request for Change form (RFC). Requests to add a new service, or discontinue an existing service, also must be documented with an RFC, and appropriate change to the Service Catalog
  • Any new program or change to a program that may change, or update, data in a financial application (e.g., accounts receivable, accounts payable, development, financial aid, general ledger, human resources, payroll, and student accounts) must be documented with a Request for Change form, and be approved by the ITS directors, the CIO, and the designated data steward (as defined in University Policy 071.11.)  If the change request is approved, a programmer not involved in developing the change will review the changes and move the changes into production.
  • Request for Change forms must document the following information regarding the proposed change:
    • change requester and contact information,
    • date of the change request,
    • staff assigned to make the change,
    • justification for the change,
    • affected equipment,
    • services affected,
    • start date of the change,
    • time needed to complete the change, including time needed to revert a change if test procedures are not successful,
    • tasks to perform as part of the change, and tests to ensure successful completion,
    • a description of the restore plan if the change was not performed successfully, and
    • the date of the last known reliable back-up made before the change.
  • New and completed RFCs, as well as changes to the Service Catalog, will be reviewed and approved at the weekly Information Technology Services directors’ meeting.
  • The members of the campus community that will be affected by the change must be notified prior to the change being executed. Approved methods of notifying the campus community include:
    • The ITS blog,
    • Public Announcements (MyFurman),
    • Student News (MyFurman),
    • Staff Notices (MyFurman),
    • Faculty News (Moodle), and
    • Other forums, or notifications, as designated by the change review process.
  • The IT Services Coordinator will catalog and track completed RFC request forms.