Oct. 27 Updates & Opportunities: New UF Homepage, Expansion of HiPerGator

New UF Homepage Goes Live – November 3

UF will soon have a fresh, fully responsive virtual “front door”: The university’s new homepage goes live next Tuesday morning, November 3.  The design provides a revitalized look for visitors who account for the 1.3 million page views UFL.EDU receives each month, and better aligns with UF’s new branding initiatives.  Please advise your faculty, staff, and alumni/constituent groups of the impending change.

The date for go-live was determined around the fall admissions cycle.  University administrators didn’t want to make any changes that might disrupt the application process for the thousands of potential new Gators and their families.  Colleges and UF units wanting to adapt the new template for their use will be able to do so in Spring, 2016, when templates and online training materials and support are available.

Expansion of HiPerGator

Work to expand HiPerGator capacity and capability is in its final stages.  HiPerGator, the University of Florida supercomputer, has been in service since August, 2013.  It currently has 16,000 cores and two PetaBytes of fast storage for large data sets. The expansion will meet current demand and expected growth by adding 30,000 cores and another PetaByte for data. With some older clusters still in operation, this will bring the total computing capacity to 51,000 cores and three PetaBytes of storage.  Expanding HiPerGator is a huge undertaking:  24 new computer racks were delivered and assembled in September.  After system testing is complete, the newly enhanced “HiPerGator 2.0” will go into production, with an expected operational date in early November.   Additional technical details about HiPerGator 2.0 are on the Research Computing website.  For more information about HiPerGator or any other high performance computing service, please contact Erik Deumens.
Also, last week UF won Dell’s Impact Award in the Big Data category!   Read all about it here. http://news.it.ufl.edu/research/uf-wins-dell-world-2015-impact-award/

Using IE 10 or below poses a Major RIsk

On January 12, 2016, Microsoft will end support for all Internet Explorer browser versions older than IE 11. Security patches and updates for earlier versions will not be released, leaving devices running IE 10 or below extremely vulnerable.

  • IE is the second-most widely used browser on the UF network
  • In September, more than 35% of UF’s IE users were running versions lower than IE 11

Failure to update devices makes you more susceptible to hacks and may cause you to unknowingly provide access to those looking to steal university and personal information. Most end-users don’t have a clue what version of IE is on their laptops and phones. UFIT has documentation explaining how to check what version you’re using and how to update to IE 11.  Faculty and staff needing help with a university-owned device should check with their area IT support.  Students, faculty, and staff requiring assistance upgrading to IE 11 on a non-university owned device may visit the UF Computing Help Desk.


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