The Staff Exchange Email System will be “at risk” on 9 May from 14:00 while new ‘backup’ software is tested on the Exchange email system.  However, as with any work of this nature, there is a small potential risk of an unexpected issue.

We continue to be targeted by SPAM/phishing emails – for further information on how to reduce SPAM and spot phishing emails please see our FAQ on SPAM email.

In order to perform vital ‘housekeeping’ on the Exchange Email Service, we need to run various tasks which will reclaim free space on the servers.  While this work is taking place, Resource Accounts will not be available to access, either via Outlook or Outlook Web Access.

The work is planned to take place in stages over the Easter weekend –  a message will be sent to all Resource Accounts with the proposed time.  If you have any concerns about the proposed time, please contact us as soon as possible.

Emails sent while the work is taking place will be queued and delivered as soon as service is restored.

We have recently archived email over 6-months old for those people over 400MB (80% of quota). For the small number of accounts still above 400MB,  we are currently archiving mail over 3-months old. This will help ensure you remain within the quota limit and can continue to send and receive email. 

During this period we will be testing a failover to a redundant system for the Exchange service.  As this failover did not work as expected previously, resulting in unplanned downtime, we are expecting this to fail.  As a result access to Exchange email will be unavailable, either via email client or web access, while the fault is investigated.

It is important that this fault can be identified and resolved as this will ensure a more robust and resilient email system.

A number of people are receiving an email, which purports to be from the University, requesting that the user confirms their email account details (including password).   This is a “phishing” email and is an attempt to capture personal information. You should not provide the details to this site.

If you have provided your details, you should change your password as soon as possible, please contact the IT Services Helpdesk for advice on 73737.   The text of the email is as follows:

Sent: 07 March 2009 10:53
Subject: UPGRADE YOUR warwick.ac.uk ACCOUNT

Dear Staff/Student
This message is from the Webmail IT Service messaging center to all subscribers/webmail users. We are currently upgrading our data base and e-mail center due to an unusual activities identified in our email system. We are deleting all unused Webmail Accounts. You are required to verify your webmail account by confirming your Webmail identity. This will prevent your Webmail account from been closed during this exercise.
In order to confirm you Web-Mail identity, you are to provide the following data; First Name:
Last Name:
Username/ID:
Password:
Date of Birth:
*Important*
Please provide all these information completely and correctly otherwise due to security reasons we may have to close your account temporarily.
We thank you for your prompt attention to this matter. Please understand that this is a security measure intended to help protect you and your Webmail Account. We apologise for any inconvenience.
Regards,
IT Service

During this period we will be testing a failover to a redundant system for the Exchange service.

During this period we will be testing a failover to a redundant system for the Exchange service.

It will not be possible to access email in the Exchange/Outlook Archive this Thursday between 10:00 and 12:00 while an update is applied to the system. This does not affect the Exchange/Outlook email service and you will still be able to send and receive emails.

As a result of customer feedback, we are changing the way we archive mail in Exchange/Outlook email accounts.