GEORGIA MILITARY COLLEGE
INFORMATION TECHNOLOGY
TE C H BU L L E TI N
FOR THE WEEK EN DING N OVEMBER 11, 2011
WILDER HALL
200 E. GREENE STREET
MILLEDGEVILLE, GA 31061
I N F O R M AT I O N A N D A DV I S O R I E S
A. What is “Social Engineering?” The term refers to the art of manipulating people into
divulging confidential information. Typically, social engineering actions involve trickery or
deception for the purpose of information gathering, fraud, or computer system access. As a
responsible computer user, one must be aware of techniques or actions that can result in a
hacker gaining access to your network account name and password. Please remember that
no one other than you should have your GMC computer/network username and password.
Be cautious of staff or students who may be looking over your shoulder when you login, and
never leave your workstation unattended without locking it. Do not respond to phone or
email requests that solicit your username and password. Google the term “social
engineering” to learn more. Individual users of GMC computing resources play a large role
in computer and network security!
B. On Friday, November 4th, we had a hardware failure on our ImageNow Application server.
Over Friday evening and Saturday, our staff worked to build a new, more stable hardware
platform and migrate the application and data to the new server. The change was a success,
and we were able to complete the transition with no loss of data or functionality. During the
course of the repair, we discovered an original issue in the hardware of the first server. We
are fairly certain that the configuration was the culprit of the system slowness and general
instability over the past few months. We configured the new server properly, so all end
users should notice better speed and reliability.
C. We are currently testing a more robust configuration on all of our SQL servers that support
our ERP suite (Datatel Colleague, Recruiter, and ImageNow). The change to a new
configuration will enable our department to manage a more robust and efficient backup
schedule on these servers. Currently, in the event of data corruption, we would need to
restore from the last data backup. We have shortened this window to one to four hours on
these systems. The new model will allow our department to restore right to the point of
failure so that very little data would be lost. The new model will also significantly shrink the
size of our backups, which will ease the strain on current storage space. If the testing
continues to progress well, we plan to implement this change over the Thanksgiving
holidays.
D. Our work on the Data Closet Remediation has begun and is progressing nicely. A large
thank you to our Engineering Department for helping advance our institution and solve
such a systemic problem. Below is a recap of the work completed so far:
Location Requirement Proposal Status
Parham Increase Air Flow/Positive Air Flow Install supply/return duct completed
Repair Ceiling repair ceiling--staff completed
Provide Better Insulation insulate ceiling--staff completed
Weather strip doors install weather striping--staff completed
Alumni Locking mechanism on storage box install hasp--staff completed
Patton Locking mechanism on storage box install hasp--staff completed
Jenkins Install air conditioning Install supply and ducting completed
Cordell Locking mechanism on storage box install hasp--staff completed
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Shipping raise equipment 4' raise existing rack--staff completed
Ruark Drill hole for wireless point drill hole--staff completed
Elliot Hall
(WR) Install air conditioning Install (2) minisplit units completed
New Bldg.
(WR) Install air conditioning (1) units completed
Admin.
Bldg.
(Fairburn) Install air conditioning reroute/install ducting completed
Bldg. 1
(Fairburn) Install air conditioning reroute/install ducting completed
Outage Report
Date Times Services Status
none none none none
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