The Blackboard service is the sum of 10 different computers working together (application servers, database servers, load balancers, etc.). For the most part we are able to tune and update the Blackboard service without impacting service.
Scheduled Maintenance We work on the Blackboard servers on the First, Third, and Fifth Thursday afternoon of each month. We perform scheduled maintenance which typically will not cause a service interruption. However, of any time period during the week, these periods of scheduled maintenance are most likely to exhibit service disruptions or intermittent response time.
Scheduled Downtime The first Thursday of each quarterly academic break is reserved for scheduled downtime. Plan for the Blackboard service to be unavailable from 5:00 a.m. until 6:00 p.m. on these days. Note that scheduled downtimes follow the quarterly academic schedule (not a semester schedule or extended schedule used by some EWU courses).
In concept we have the option to decide when the Blackboard service will be down or to wait for the service to unexpectedly go down. The servers can pick a date and time to go down or we can proactively pick a date and time to perform maintenance. To prevent unscheduled downtimes, we opt to have regularly scheduled downtimes where necessary maintenance can be performed.We provide the Blackboard service for the benefit of Eastern's Faculty and Students. As always, we want to hear from you. If a specific scheduled downtime will have a significant negative impact on your instruction please let us know (rescheduling is a possibility but we have limited time windows for necessary scheduled down times).
