This page lists all official IT service alerts shared with the KAUST community. Alerts are also delivered directly to your KAUST email.
Standard Weekly Maintenance Window
Thursday at 5:00 PM to Saturday at 8:00 PM. During this window, some services may experience temporary slowdowns, intermittent issues, or brief outages while essential maintenance is performed.
Some KAUST systems hosted on the KAUST Portal (portal.kaust.edu.sa) are maintained directly by our cloud vendor. These activities are scheduled quarterly and are independent of KAUST IT's regular maintenance windows. They may temporarily affect the availability or performance of several online services.
View Planned Vendor Maintenance
The most recent IT service alerts are shown below. For the full history, see the archive further down this page.
30 September, 2026
Scheduled Maintenance: KAUST Sign-In Services, IT Website, and Network SwitchesPlanned IT maintenance includes a 30-minute KAUST sign-in maintenance window, IT Website maintenance, and ongoing network switch upgrades. Review the schedule and any action you may need to take.
27 September, 2026
IT Maintenance Notice: IT Website MaintenanceThe KAUST IT Website will undergo maintenance on Tuesday, 6 October, from 9:00 AM to 12:00 PM. No downtime is expected, but the website may be slower than usual during this time.
The Change Advisory Board (CAB) is a cross-functional group within KAUST IT that reviews and approves proposed IT changes to maintain service reliability and reduce risk. The CAB Chair is appointed by the Chief Information Officer (CIO).
For urgent or high-impact situations, the Emergency Change Advisory Board (ECAB) may be activated to ensure timely decisions while protecting service stability.
All IT changes are reviewed under the Change Management process. When communication is needed, an IT Alert is published and shared with the KAUST community. This includes:
All past IT service alerts are listed below, including scheduled maintenance notices, unplanned outages, and service restoration updates.
24 December, 2025
KAUST Community,
The following maintenance activities are planned to keep KAUST IT services reliable and to maintain their performance. Please review the schedule and expected impact below.
When: Wednesday, December 24, 2025, from 5:00 PM to 9:00 PM.
Impact: A maintenance activity for the VPN Service will take place, during this time there may be intermittent disruption to the VPN Service.
When: Recurring every evening, from 6:00 PM to 11:30 PM, starting Wednesday, December 24, 2025, through Saturday, January 31, 2026.
Affected locations: (Buildings 6, 12, 14, 16, 18, 23, 24, 35, 36, 40, CMOR1010, CMOR1020, CMOR1050, CMOR1060, Security Headquarters).
Impact: Network equipment will be upgraded across campus and off-campus buildings (excluding residential neighborhoods). Each building may experience one short interruption (up to 20 minutes) affecting internet, Wi-Fi, IP phones, and other connected systems.
Action Required:
When: Thursday, December 25, 2025, from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
Impact: An Internet firewall maintenance activity will take place. During this activity there will be an intermittent disruption to internet service and services hosted in the cloud to the entire community and all externally published applications.
When: Friday, December 26, 2025, from 2:00 PM to 11:30 PM.
Impact: An upgrade of the network Core equipment software will be conducted in academic buildings (Building 1, 2 , 3 , 4 ,5). Each building may experience one short interruption (up to 20 minutes) of internet, Wi-Fi, IP phones, and other connected systems.
Action required:
When: Recurring every day, from 10:00 AM to 4:00 PM, starting Sunday, December 24, 2025, through Saturday, January 3, 2026.
Where: All residential neighborhoods.
Impact: A brief (10-15 minute) interruption to internet, Wi-Fi, IP phones, and connected systems may occur in residential units.
Action required:
When: Tuesday, January 6, 2026, from 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM.
Impact: Azure firewall maintenance activity will take place, no impact is expected on any services.
When: Thursday, January 1, 2026, from 5:00 PM to 10:00 PM.
Impact: Data Center firewall maintenance activity will take place; during this activity there will be an intermittent service disruption impacting all services hosted in the Data Center.
Contact the IT Service Desk at 910 or 012-808-0910, or visit the walk-in support desk during business hours.
You can also log a ticket using our virtual assistant, VITA, at it.kaust.edu.sa or vita.kaust.edu.sa.
We appreciate your understanding as we continue improving KAUST IT's services.
KAUST IT
it.kaust.edu.sa
