Infrastructure services

Customers:

All Students, staff and faculty (including postgrad students with staff accounts) of Qatar University.

Description:

Access to IT services at Qatar University require a Qatar University staff username and password. A username is created automatically upon assignment of Job Id by Human Resources department. A 'staff' username will be the primary identity for accessing IT services while working or researching at Qatar University. Any misuse of IT systems traced to a username is the responsibility of the account owner. The current password should remain confidential to the account owner to avoid systems misuse.

Visiting academics or temporary staff such as vendors or consultants are provisioned in the same way as QU staff to provide access to services on a short-term basis. Responsible Section Heads or Managers must complete the ‘Generic / Shared Account Request’ form available at ITS Helpdesk. All temporary accounts must have vendor information and expiration dates specified on the form. The maximum allowed period for the temporary account is one year.

Access Request:

Usernames are created automatically upon joining QU

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Customers:

Staff, Faculty and Students of Qatar University.

Description:

Access to IT services at Qatar University require a Qatar University provided credentials. Enterprise Active Directory (EAD) is a directory service used for authentication and authorization to centrally managed services deployed university wide. Authentication services enables Single Sign On across applications, simplify and automate provisioning and de-provisioning access permissions.

Benefits & Features:

• Provides centralized authentication to windows computers.
• Provides single sign on across applications.
• Automate provisioning/ deprovisioning of access permissions.

Availability & Support:

Please contact helpdesk@qu.edu.qa for further assistance.

Service Exclusions:

For the users other than staff, faculty and students access will be provided based on ITS internal approval after receiving filled form via ITS helpdesk.

Customers:

Staff, Faculty, Colleges and Departments.

Description:

This service provides all QU staff with Central Departmental File Storage for private and shared files.

Services include:

• Departmental Shared drives - access to “shared” drives and group folders. Department heads or Section Heads manage permissions on these folders.
• Individual drives - private access to individual “home” drives (Z drive)
• Backups - centralized weekly full and daily incremental backups of shared and home network drives. ITS retains the Backups for period 3 months according to ITS retention policy.
• File restoration - restoration of files/folders that have been deleted, lost or corrupted.

Access Request:

• Individual shared drives are provisioned upon request by the staff by submitting an ITS Helpdesk request.
• Department or Section Heads must complete ‘Shared Folder Resource Request form’ and submit the form via ITS Helpdesk.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

• Backup of Local Desktop "C" and "D" drives
• Storage of personal files e.g. photos, movies and music
• "Cloud Storage" e.g. Skydrive, Dropbox, Flickr.

Customers:

Application owners within Staff, Faculty, Researchers and Administrative units at QU.

Description:

ITS Systems Administration services provide effective operational oversight and maintenance of all ITS hosted IT services. Services hosted and maintained by ITS require hardware and software to ensure accessibility and stability of the University’s applications. Systems Administration tasks ensure these applications are secure, available and recoverable.

Systems Administration services include:

• Monitoring and maintenance of QU hardware and server operating system software Installation of hardware in data center.
• Adoption of preventative measures which ensure availability and accessibility to IT services
• Management of operating system upgrades & patches
• 2nd & 3rd level incident analysis and resolution for hardware and operating systems issues.
• Infrastructure systems planning e.g. capacity, availability and configuration.

Systems Administration services currently provide support for the Windows Server and Linux operating systems

Access Request:

Systems Administration services are provided once services are initiated by completed projects via the ITS Project Management Office. Application owners are required to submit ITS Helpdesk request.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

Systems hosted outside of ITS controlled data centers

Customers:

Application owners within Staff, Faculty, Researchers and Administrative units at QU.

Description:

ITS Database Administration services provide standard database administration tasks to monitor and maintain database environments that are key to delivering the University’s business, teaching and research applications. Examples of Database Administration tasks include:

• Creation of relevant databases to support application delivery for the University
• Maintenance and patching of University database platforms
• Monitoring and reporting database workload and performance
• Monitoring and reporting growth of database storage.
• Cloning
• Troubleshooting and Optimization
• Backup and Restore

ITS supports databases hosted on Oracle, MySql, MongoDb and Microsoft SQL Server database platforms.

Access Request:

Database Administration services are provided once services are initiated by completed projects via the ITS Project Management Office. Application owners are required to submit ITS Helpdesk request.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

Databases hosted outside of ITS controlled data centers

Customers:

QU Staff, Faculty and Researchers

Description:

ITS provides Enterprise backup and recovery solutions for servers and applications hosted in ITS Data center.

Access Request:

ITS helpdesk request must be submitted along with Backup-Restore form

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

Backup and Recovery of systems hosted outside of ITS data center.

Customers:

• Departments and Business Units
• Faculty and Staff of Qatar University

Description:

A Virtual Private Network (VPN) connection may be required to access computing resources and networks that are otherwise restricted to users who are on the QU campus. For example, access to the payroll system is currently restricted to computers that are physically on campus. To access them from home or from a remote location securely, a user has to connect to a "VPN" system which will then encrypt all communication between their computer and the Payroll system.

By default, all faculty and staff have access to common services through the VPN.

Faculty and staff may request access to additional resources on campus.

QU departments may also request VPN access for consultants or vendors for a limited time to conduct QU business.

Benefits & features:

• Allow access to internal QU resources through a secure channel
• Allow consultants access to restricted resources to complete a task, e.g. software installation or configuration
• Access is customized based on the business need
• Two "flavors" of VPN access are available: SSL VPN (using a web browser) or using a VPN client (e.g. Pulse Secure) to access network resources.
• Some services are accessible only through VPN, even if the user is on campus.

Access Request:

Users submit a Remote Access Request to the ITS Help Desk.

Availability & Support:

Please contact helpdesk@qu.edu.qa for further assistance

Customers:

Application owners within Staff, Faculty, Researchers and Administrative units at QU.

Description:

ITS Storage Management services ensure the University’s on-going data storage requirements are met, data integrity is maintained and data can be restored and accessed in a timely manner. Storage management services include:

• Consultation and design – consultation, analysis and design of storage requirements
• Storage allocation, security and delivery
• Capacity and utilization reporting – reporting storage utilization and capacity and analysis and trending of future capacity needs
• Back up and restoration of University data.

ITS Storage Management includes data storage for University application environments.

Access Request:

Storage Administration services are provided once services are initiated by completed projects via the ITS Project Management Office. Application owners are required to submit ITS Helpdesk request.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

Storage Systems hosted outside of ITS controlled data centers

Customers:

QU Colleges

Description:

Centralized infrastructure-hosting applications to manage educational software licenses.

Licensing services include::

• Provide the license manager hosting infrastructure
• Deploy licenses
• Update/renew the licenses
• Support licensing services

Access Request:

ITS helpdesk request must be submitted. The Colleges must procure licenses prior to requesting services.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

• License management of personal software
• License management of software hosted outside of ITS data center.
• License management for software not procured by QU

Customers:

Application owners within Staff, Faculty, Researchers and Administrative units at QU.

Description:

ITS Infrastructure Hosting services provide the physical housing of the University’s server, storage and communications infrastructure in a secure environment within the QU ITS Data Center. Connected to the wired QU network, the data center is the heart of the information systems delivery for our organization. The data center also contains an uninterruptable power supply to protect against power cuts, air-conditioning to protect against excessive heat and fire dampening systems.

ITS Infrastructure Hosting services includes tasks such as:

• Maintenance of the university data canter and environment
• Installation of hardware in data center
• Monitoring Power and Cooling
• Data Center Security

Access Request:

Hosting can be requested by logging a request with ITS Helpdesk.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

Infrastructure Hosting services outside of ITS controlled data centers.

Customers:

Staff, Faculty and Students of Qatar University.

Description:

This service provides all QU staff with high-speed internet access for teaching, learning, research and business related tasks. ITS provides the following support to manage internet access and utilization:

• Connectivity to internet sites, applications and resources from your desktop or mobile devices
• Filtering of objectionable web sites and material
• Firewall for security management
• Domain registration and management
• Content prioritization - make internet sites and applications more, or less, accessible to staff
• Creation of temporary internet access accounts for conference and symposium use.
• Connectivity from QU to Extranet of external Entities

Access Request:

Access to Internet Services provided upon creation of QU user accounts.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

Access to Objectionable websites

Customers:

Staff, Faculty and Students. QU visitors can access the guest wireless network.

Description:

This service provides fast and secure network connectivity to the QU network and the internet. Network connectivity is available through:

• Fixed line network – access to the QU Local Area Network (LAN) and internet through wall outlets.

Access Request:

Access to wired network provided upon creation of QU user accounts.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

• Support for non-QU owned laptops connected to the wired or wireless network. Personal laptops may be connected to the wired or wireless network but are not supported by ITS should problems occur.
• Personal wireless network devices (e.g. Wireless access points) are forbidden on the QU network.

Customers:

Staff, Faculty and Students. QU visitors can access the guest wireless network.

Description:

This service provides all staff with fast and secure network connectivity to the QU network and the internet. Network connectivity is available through:

• Wireless network – Wireless connectivity to the QU LAN and internet from a number of indoor and outdoor locations throughout QU campus.
• Guest Wireless - wireless connectivity to the internet from a number of indoor and outdoor locations throughout QU campus.
• EduRoam - wireless service allowing visiting staff from participating EduRoam institutions or travelling QU staff access to high speed internet services free.

For security and ongoing support issues, access to the QU network for personal devices is provided as follows:

• All staff can connect their personal mobile devices to QU Secure or QU User network
• All visitors can connect their personal devices to QU Guest network

Access Request:

Access to wireless network provided upon creation of QU user accounts.

Availability & Support:

For service support kindly contact ITS Helpdesk (helpdesk@qu.edu.qa)

Service Exclusions:

• Support for non-QU owned laptops connected to the wired or wireless network. Personal laptops may be connected to the wired or wireless network but are not supported by ITS should problems occur.
• Personal wireless network devices (e.g. Wireless access points) are forbidden on the QU network.

Customers:

Staff, faculty and students of Qatar University.

Description:

A DNS server is a computer server that contains a database of IP addresses and their associated hostnames, and serves to resolve/translate those common names to IP addresses as requested. This service provides the QU Community the option to register hostnames for internal and external DNS resolution.

Benefits & Features:

Register QU Domain names

Access Request:

DNS services can be requested by logging a request with ITS Helpdesk and fill the DNS entry request form.

Availability & Support:

Please contact helpdesk@qu.edu.qa for further assistance

Service Exclusions:

Non QU domain names.

Customers:

Departments and Business Units are the end users

Description:

Technical and Project teams may request changes to Firewall Policy elements by filling out and submitting a Firewall Policy Change Request form to the ITS Help Desk.

The Help Desk will then forward the information to the appropriate team for further validation. One of the ITS team members may contact you for additional information prior to producing a formal Firewall Policy Change Request. Requests that are approved by ITS will be processed within 2 business days.

If you need assistance with a somewhat complicated system, or you're not sure that you have all the requested information, one of our experts will work with you until all the required details are completed.

Benefits & Features:

• Allow or block access to specific resources on campus
• Request access to an external resource that is blocked by existing rules
• Block access to harmful sites reported by users
• Protect QU resources and data from unauthorized access

Access Request:

Users submit a Firewall Policy Change request to the ITS Help Desk.

Availability & Support:

Please contact helpdesk@qu.edu.qa for further assistance