IT Change Management

ITS plans and implements technical changes on a continuous basis to improve functionality and maintain the security and reliability of IT services at Washington and Lee. One of the tools employed by ITS to manage this change is a maintenance window - a regularly scheduled, weekly time period for routine maintenance and upgrades. Since July 2012, ITS has scheduled a maintenance window from 3-7 a.m. every Thursday.

ITS has chosen this period outside of regular business hours to minimize the possibility of disrupting University business, while providing an opportunity for ITS to regularly make routine changes that are essential in maintaining stable and up-to-date services. Other non-routine changes will be evaluated and scheduled on an individual basis, with appropriate notification to the W&L community and individual stakeholders as needed.

Here is a summary of the maintenance window:

• Description: A regularly scheduled period of time for routine IT maintenance in the live, production environment. Routine changes are defined as those that are done on a regular basis, are well understood in terms of impact on IT systems and services, have a high percentage of success, and are of short duration.
• Timing: once a week, 3-7 a.m. Thursday. The maintenance window would be suspended during periods of intense and important activity at the University, such as the beginning and end of each semester. During the maintenance window, students, faculty and staff should avoid the use of network resources, such as e-mail and the Web.
• Purpose: Provide benefit to clients as well as ITS by scheduling routine IT maintenance outside of business hours, at the same time every week. Regularly scheduled maintenance will assist ITS in providing a stable and secure IT environment, and streamline communication concerning this maintenance.