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Guidelines for ITS Maintenance Windows

Home > ITS Maintenance Calendar 2009 > Guidelines for ITS Maintenance Windows

A maintenance window is a defined period of time during which planned outages and changes to production (see definition below) services and systems may occur. The purpose of defining standard maintenance windows is to allow clients of the service to prepare for possible disruption or changes.

We encourage all services and systems to negotiate a maintenance window with their clients via an Service Level Agreement (SLA).  For assistance in creating an SLA, contact the ITS Service Managers.

If a service does not have a negotiated maintenance window (via an SLA or equivalent) the following guidelines apply:

  • Planned outages should be performed between 7PM and 7AM on any day of the week. Work scheduled outside of this window should have explicit sign-off from the system steward or designated client representative.
  • Planned outages and changes should not be scheduled during the first or last weeks of instruction, finals or grading week of the academic quarters, or during other significant campus events or key dates.

Production means university staff, faculty and users depend on the service to complete business and academic tasks and objectives.