IT Colleagues and Campus Partners,
To ensure our services remain completely stable during the final exam window for summer sessions and the start of the fall semester, we are implementing our standard IT change freezes on production systems.
These freezes do not mean systems will be down or that normal maintenance is stopping; we are pausing non-essential updates and background changes during these peak academic periods to prevent unexpected disruptions. All services will remain fully operational, and our teams will continue providing active support.
2026 Change Freeze Dates
- End-of-Summer Freeze: Friday, Aug. 7 (5 p.m.) to Friday, Aug. 14 (5 p.m.)
- Fall Semester Freeze: Monday, Aug. 17 (midnight) to Friday, Aug. 28 (5 p.m.)
- Key Academic Milestones: Fall semester begins Wednesday, Aug. 19; instruction begins Wednesday, Aug. 26.
Systems Included in the Freeze*
The freeze applies to systems that directly support students, integrate with student data, or are used by the faculty and staff assisting them:
| Application & Business Systems Management |
Data and Platform Services supporting the listed systems Integration Services (IS) - API Management
- Integration Infrastructure (iHub)
Enterprise AI Services | Student Affairs Systems - Cal1Card
- Career Center
- Housing / Dining
| Student Integrated Systems (SIS) - CalCentral
- Course Curriculum Management System (CCMS)
- Berkeley Campus Solutions (BCS)
- Electronic eForms (eForms)
- HigherOne / CashNet
- Schedule Planner
- Series25 / 25Live
- Slate
|
| Communication & Collaboration |
Email & Collaboration Services - Adobe
- ArcGIS
- Box
- Google Workspace (Gmail, Calendar, Chat, Docs, Sheets & Slides, Drive, Groups, Google Meet)
| - Document Management (Imagine)
- MS Office
- Premium AI Services
- Qualtrics
- Zoom
| Telephony services - Campus & Emergency phones
|
| Information Security |
Identity & Access Management (CalNet) - CalGroups
- CalNet 2-Step Verification
- CalNet Accounts
- Single Sign On
| Secure Computing - Endpoint Detection & Response (EDR)
| Security Policy & Compliance - Socreg Asset Registration
|
| Infrastructure |
Data Center Services - Data Center Colocation Services supporting the listed systems
| Network & Connectivity Management - All Campus and Residence Hall Networks (Campus and Visitor Wi-FI, Wired connectivity, DNS, DHCP, and IP Addressing, Load Balancer)
- Campus Firewall services (bSecure Data Center, Departmental and Shared Firewalls)
- VPN infrastructure (Remote access VPN, Site-to-Site VPN)
|
| People & Culture |
- UC Learning Center/SumTotal
| |
| Teaching & Learning |
Academic Technology & Support - Classroom Technology
Advising and Assessment Systems - BOA (Berkeley Online Advising)
- Course Evaluations
| Learning Management - Ally
- bCourses
- DataHub
- Ed Discussion
- Gradescope
- OpenLearn
- Peerceptiv
- Student Response Systems
- Turnitin
| Lecture Capture |
*Important: Other production environments that impact student systems may be added if necessary.
How to Request an Exception
Please avoid planning any changes to these systems during the freeze windows. If an urgent, business-critical change is required, you must secure a formal exception from the IT Change Advisory Board (CAB) before submitting your change ticket.
To request an exception, please email one of our ITSM/Network Management leads:
Because our academic systems are in high demand right now, any disruption could cause a major incident that requires formal review. Thank you for your collaboration in keeping our digital campus steady and reliable for our students and faculty as the new academic year kicks off.
Kind regards,
Tracy Shinn
Associate Vice Chancellor for IT and Chief Information Officer
