Infrastructure
UD WAN upgrade
This winter, IT, Princeton Hosted Solutions, and Lightower Fiber Networks completed a major upgrade to the University's statewide network. The upgrade to the University's network leveraged a significant increase in fiber connections to the entire state of Delaware network. All UD locations' connections have been upgraded to a minimum of 50 megabits/second (Mb/S). Many sites' connections have been upgraded to 200 Mb/S while the Wilmington Campus connection was upgraded to 1 gigabit/second (Gb/S) and the connection to the Sharp Campus (Lewes) was upgraded to 5 Gb/S. For more information about the upgrade, read this UDaily article.
Google Custom Search Engine at UD
On April 28, 2016, UD's license for the Google Search Appliance expired.
As part of UD's updated Web presence, the University's Office of Communications and Public Affairs (CPA) has released a new University of Delaware header bar that contains an optional Google Custom Search Engine (CSE). CSE is a free service within Google Apps at UD.
According to CPA, the UD-wide CSE should only be used in the new UD banner and headers. The code for the new headers has been released to Web developers in a UD-Branded Header and Footer code repository.
The UD-wide search collection includes all Web pages that match these searches:
- http://www.udel.edu/*
- http://*.udel.edu
- http://udel.onecampus.com/*
- http://www.bluehens.com/*
- http://udmba.com/*
- http://www.udconnection.com/*
For more information about excluding pages from the UD CSE, using CSE promotions to replace GSA KeyMatches, and building a CSE for your department or college, review the information available on UD's Google Custom Search Engine help pages.
End of life for Drupal 6 server
As of February 24, the international Drupal community ceased support for Drupal 6. As a result, we plan to take down the University's Drupal server by the end of the summer 2016 term (August 12, 2016).
Many University departments have moved or have begun to move their Drupal sites to other platforms. About 30 sites have been removed or moved so far. Of the 25 departmental sites still hosted on the University's central server, 15 are moving to WordPress or SharePoint.
- Some departments are choosing to build a WordPress site at sites.udel.edu or a commercially hosted service.
- Some departments are choosing to build a SharePoint site.
- Some units might choose to rebuild a site at a commercially hosted Drupal 7 or 8 service.
- Some departments are considering a move to Adobe Experience Manager, which will be hosting the UD home page later this month.
- Some departments may create an HTML archive of their current Drupal sites and host those pages on Copland.
- If a department's site depends on features in Drupal 6, the site could be moved to a commercial provider that continues to support Drupal 6. However, that is a short-term solution since only a few members of the Drupal community are continuing to release patches and other support for Drupal 6.
Email consult@udel.edu for more information or to set up a meeting to discuss the best options for your Drupal 6 site.
