Nebula2 domain end of life: April 3, 2017

The Managed Workstation Service plans to move the Nebula2 domain to end of life on April 3, 2017.

What and When

On April 3, 2017, the Managed Workstation Service plans to shut down the Nebula2 domain.

The Managed Workstation Service has planned to migrate to the NETID domain for many years. Moving the Nebula2 domain to end of life by April 2017 will allow us to remove that cost from the Managed Workstation Service core rate for FY18, greatly simplify the infrastructure, and allow the Managed Workstation service to leverage additional capabilities provided at no additional cost via that service.

Over the course of the next year, you will see a series of changes to transition the design of the Managed Workstation service from the Nebula2 domain to the NETID domain. We will communicate about those changes separately, but from a big picture, these will include:

-Automatically disable any unused Nebula2 user account (~May 2016)

-Move Mac VPN services to end of life; replaced by Husky OnNet VPN (~May 2016)

-By department, disable still active Nebula2 user accounts; will allow self-service re-enable to mitigate impact (~May-July 2016)

-Work with customers who have included Nebula2 in their server/application designs outside the scope of the Managed Workstation service (~May 2016-March 2017)

[Note: Standard Managed Servers customers leveraging Nebula2 will receive assistance via that service]

-Begin workstation migrations of departments with no active Nebula2 user accounts (~August 2016)

-Complete workstation migrations (~December 2016)

What you need to do

If you have a server in the Nebula2 domain, it is time to migrate it.

If you have an application or other IT infrastructure which depends on the Nebula2 domain, it is time to begin planning how to change it to the NETID domain.

If you are still using a Nebula2 user account, it is time to stop using it, and instead use a NETID user account. The only remaining part of the Managed Workstation service design which requires a Nebula2 user account is the Mac VPN, which will move to end of life very soon. You can follow our self-service instructions here: https://itconnect.uw.edu/wares/nebula/adding-users/changing-to-netid-logins/

More Info

Customers still using the Nebula2 domain beyond April 3, 2017 will likely need to bear the full cost of that infrastructure, as it is not fair for all customers to bear that cost beyond this timeframe.

If you have questions about this planned change a year from now, please send an email to help@uw.edu with “Nebula2 domain shutdown” in the subject.

If you have a server or application you need help with, please send an email to help@uw.edu with “Nebula2 server/application domain migration” in the subject.

Brian Arkills

Managed Workstation Service Owner