Scheduled maintenance windows are designated time periods during which ALL services may encounter interruptions. Notifications for affected systems will be provided on the Service Portal before the scheduled maintenance periods. There are two types of maintenance windows throughout the year:

• MINOR with a duration of 12 hours
• MAJOR with a duration of 36 hours.

Occasionally, there arises a need for immediate maintenance actions that cannot wait for a regularly scheduled Monthly Maintenance Window. These urgent maintenance tasks are exclusively executed outside the Monthly Maintenance Window when it is imperative to uphold the security, stability, and functionality of a system.

In the event that urgent maintenance becomes necessary, DTS will communicate any service disruptions through notifications on the Service Portal.

No changes to systems are to be scheduled during this period to minimise risk in these student focused periods (start of semesters 1&2). The only changes during this period will be in response to, or to prevent major incidents, or to address ‘critical’ security patches.

During a change freeze, systems supporting University critical & important processes will not be changed unless in response to, or to prevent a major incident, or to address ‘critical’ or ‘important’ security patches. The periods where change freezes apply are:

• Supporting University Critical Processes (as listed in Section 7 of the University Business Continuity Management Framework)
• Student Admissions
• Student Enrolments
• Student Fees
• Student Teaching
• Student Exams
• Maintaining critical research
• Pay Staff
• Pay Creditors
• Student Census dates
• Research grant applications
• Research grant revenue
• Important Student Processes

Key Student Dates:

• Welcome Week, Start of semester 1 & semester 2
• Graduations
• Open Days
• Student Accommodation Check-In and Check-Out weekend