IT: Server Policy

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IT: Policies:
Server Policy


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Effective: August 13, 2001

Policy
Any server found to be causing a network problem will be taken off the network until the server is fixed. The person responsible for the server, if known, will be contacted by telephone, voice mail or pager, both at CMU as well as at home. The IT staff will work with the person responsible for the troubled server in correcting the problem.

Rationale
The university network has been seriously impacted by the spread of virus and worm programs that primarily infect the Microsoft servers on campus. These programs essentially flood the network with messages to the point where the network is saturated. Many times the saturation of our network also impacts the entire Michigan University Network (MERIT).

Guidelines
Microsoft continues to release security fixes on a daily and sometimes hourly basis. It is very important that the servers on campus continue to have the security fixes applied to them. At CMU, the information technology servers are very distributed and are managed at many different levels throughout the university. For example, all of the servers located at the Foust Computing Center are monitored and updated by the IT staff, whereas the college servers are monitored and updated by the college’s technical support staff. Many departments and faculty also have servers running on their desktops or within the departments that they manage. Keeping all of these servers and employees up to date is a tremendous logistics problem. In order to manage this situation this policy is necessary.

It is recommended that individuals responsible for running a server within each area should be aware of and is on the email list for the Distributed Computing Advisory Committee (DCAC). The DCAC is primarily made up of all of the computer support technicians from the colleges. The DCAC meets on a monthly basis. This group has established an email list that keeps the members up to date with the latest information about problems such as this.