Major SMU Website Migration Project
Over 200 SMU websites are currently hosted on smu.edu. That web server is out of date and needs to be retired. In early summer, OIT will announce a plan to end use of smu.edu by summer 2013.
Most smu.edu sites will be moved to the Sitecore content management system. Sitecore is behind www.smu.edu. A small number of sites are not intended for public consumption or have special needs. These sites will move to inside.smu, Blackboard and other systems.
We are now confirming ownership of all sites. After that, we will survey site owners to see what will be needed to migrate their sites to Sitecore.
Site owners will be responsible for migrating their content to Sitecore. OIT will provide training, documentation, and consulting assistance to help with the migrations.
Sitecore has several benefits over smu.edu:
- No more need to be an expert in Frontpage, Dreamweaver, or even Sharepoint Designer. You’ll just use a web browser to create and edit pages.
- All sites will get SMU’s high quality branding or alternate branding chosen by your school or division.
- You can review site changes before publishing.
- You can see who made changes to your content and when the changes were made.
- Much easier to share content and images.
- Direct access to high quality imagery and resources from Public Affairs.
Go To Meeting Licenses: Now Available
OIT has purchased a set of 25 licenses for Go To Meeting. This tool allows you to setup a web conference session supporting both audio and web content. Go To Meeting supports up to 25 attendees in an online meeting. Options are available for a larger web conference if needed. Several of the licenses will be distributed to a department manager who has expressed an interest and need for regular use. A batch of licenses will be managed by the Help Desk and checked out to faculty and staff on a temporary basis. If you need to schedule an online meeting, the license can be assigned to you to host the meeting. Please be sure to allow 24 hours if possible to schedule your online meeting.
Go to Meeting offers the following features:
- Audio: If your computer has a built in microphone, that audio can be transmitted to your attendees. Otherwise, a conference bridge is available and built into the online tool. This conference bridge can be used by anyone involved in the online meeting at no cost.
- Chat: While you are conducting the online meeting, chat tools are available for attendees to share questions or comments. Chat can be made available to everyone in the conference or kept private as needed.
- Shared Control: Although the organizer is required to begin and end the web conference, control can be passed to anyone in the meeting. So one person can share their screen and present material and then pass it along to another presenter if needed.
- Recording: Meetings can be recorded and stored for future reference. These are stored on your local computer by default.
To request access to the online meeting tool or to inquire about an assigned departmental license, please email help@smu.edu.
Remote Desktop Connections: Soon to require VPN
If you use remote desktop to access your office computer while away, you will soon be required to establish a VPN session prior to connecting to your computer. This change will be made on May 21. 
After that date, you will need to download the Cisco AnyConnect client from https://securenet.smu.edu. You’ll need to authenticate with the VPN client prior to establishing the Remote Desktop session.
One of the highest volume attacks on our network are brute force attacks against campus machines that have RDP enabled! This change is being implemented to provide better security for our desktop environment.
This change will only affect remote access to machines on the SMU Domain. If there are outside contractors or vendors that remote into campus machines, they will also need to use the AnyConnect client. This will not affect functionality for Cox or Lyle faculty and staff.