Machine registration

Service Description

Machine Registration provides network registration facilities to small teams of Computing Officers and other IT personnel in schools across the University. Machines must be registered to receive the correct network addressing and network access.

The service can be used from anywhere with an internet connection via a registration website.

Features

  • Secure web interface with access restricted to authorized users only.
  • Automatic changes applied within 5 minutes for a network address and 30 minutes for a hostname.
  • Real time error checking to help avoid problems.
  • Batch processing of changes for multiple machine registrations.
  • Power usage estimates for registered machines based on machine visibility on the network.
  • Full audit trail allowing restoration of deleted machines and change tracking.
  • Basic analysis to help identify old registrations for removal.

Users

Computing Officers, and other IT personnel, in schools across the University.

Service Hours

24 hours a day, seven days a week. Automatic changes will be applied within 30 minutes, manual changes will be applied on the next working day.

The ISS “at risk” period is 07:00-09:00 every Tuesday. Further planned maintenance times will be publicised in advance if there will be a disruption to the service.

Level of Service

Target availability: 99.95% of service hours, excluding advertised planned maintenance downtime. This equates to a target of no more than 23 minutes of unplanned outages per month.

All registration data is held securely and backed-up hourly. In the event of a significant hardware failure, restoration of the service should be within 3 working days.

Support and Documentation

Help pages are located within the registration web site including a screen cast demonstration at https://connect.ncl.ac.uk/help/features.php

Administration support such as providing access to the service and changing levels of service is available via the ISS Service Desk on 5999 or it.servicedesk@ncl.ac.uk.

Additional support is available via the ISS Service Desk on 5999 or it.servicedesk@ncl.ac.uk.

Request Process

Getting authorization to use the service:

  1. A request to add a user to a registration team should be sent from a current member of the team, or senior management in your school, to it.servicedesk@ncl.ac.uk.

To access the service:

  1. Login with your ISS credentials at https://connect.ncl.ac.uk/login.php.

To register a machine:

  1. Complete the form at https://connect.ncl.ac.uk/form/index.php.

To edit or delete a registration:

  1. Find the registration on the Teams page or using the Search form (https://connect.ncl.ac.uk/search).
  2. Select one or more registrations from the machine list.
  3. Click Edit, Delete or one of the other actions to be taken to the appropriate form.

Requests for any other aspect of the service should be made via the ISS Service Desk on 5999 or it.servicedesk@ncl.ac.uk.

Requests relating to this service will be handled according to the ISS Request Fulfilment process.

User Responsibility

Users are expected to make use of registration site help pages before contacting the Service Desk for help.

Costs

N/A