Changes to the network software licence service.
05 Nov 2007
Of interest only to members of staff who access licences off-campus.
On Monday 19 November 2007 IT Services will be making changes to the campus network licence farm service. This change will only be of interest to those few people who access network software licences off-campus. The change described below will have no impact on anyone else.
Until now it has been possible, where the terms-and-conditions of the licence permit, to obtain network licences for software off-campus. However, the service has grown to the point where it is necessary to make some changes to the way this access is managed. The change we propose to implement has advantages for both the organisation, in terms of better security and better compliance with the terms-and-conditions of licensing agreements, and for you the end-user, in terms of replacing an ad hoc and unsupported access mechanism with one that is fully supported.
On the morning of Monday 19 November 2007, we will block all direct off-campus access to the network licence servers. Those of you who access licences off-campus may continue to do so (subject to the terms-and-conditions of the individual software licence agreements), by installing and using the VPN client. The VPN client is a piece of software which establishes a secure connection between your computer and the campus network. You do not need to wait until 19 November to install and use the VPN client: if you install it now the change, when it happens, will be transparent to you.
Further details of this change, reasons for it, list of the software packages affected, frequently asked questions and links to download the VPN client can be found on the web site at:
Dr David R V Buckley
IT Services Desktop Infrastructure Team