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IT Alerts

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.

Vendor-Scheduled Maintenance

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

 

Recent Alerts

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 Switches

Planned 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.

Read more

27 September, 2026

IT Maintenance Notice: IT Website Maintenance

The 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.

Read more

 

About IT Alerts and the Change Advisory Board

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.

Learn more about the CAB

When Are Alerts Issued?

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:

  • Scheduled or planned service changes
  • Changes affecting specific groups or areas (such as faculty, students, or building residents)
  • Unplanned outages or urgent service issues

 

Alerts Archive

All past IT service alerts are listed below, including scheduled maintenance notices, unplanned outages, and service restoration updates.

 

Scheduled Maintenance: GitLab, Self-Service, and a reminder to update your DUO Mobile application

29 January, 2026

KAUST Community,

The following maintenance activities are planned to keep KAUST IT’s services reliable and performing well. Please review the schedule and expected impacts below.

Self-Service on macOS Upgrade to Self-Service+

When:
Thursday, January 29, 2026

Impact:
KAUST IT will roll out an update to the Self-Service application on KAUST-managed macOS laptops and desktops.
The application will automatically upgrade to Self-Service+.
Functionality remains the same; however, the application name, icon, and interface will be updated.
You may notice the old Self-Service icon in your Dock stop working or appear as a question mark until the new icon is pinned.

Action Required:
No action is required.
If the old Dock icon stops working, open Self-Service+ from Launchpad or Applications and pin it to your Dock.
You may remove the old icon if it remains visible.

Duo Mobile Application Update

When:
Update before February 2, 2026

Impact:
KAUST IT recommends keeping the Duo Mobile application up to date on all mobile devices.
Version numbers may differ depending on your device type.
The key requirement is to ensure the app is up to date.

Action Required:
Update the Duo Mobile app from the Apple App Store or Google Play Store.
Keeping mobile applications updated ensures access to the latest features, security updates, and bug fixes.

GitLab Upgrade

When:
Saturday, February 7, 2026

Impact:
GitLab will be unavailable during the upgrade to the latest version.

Action Required:
Most community members do not need to take any action.

If you use custom CI/CD pipelines or maintain your own GitLab runners, please review your pipeline configuration.
GitLab version 18 introduces a change that affects pipelines which explicitly set a pull_policy.

For IT-maintained runners, ensure pull_policy is set to always or if-not-present.
For self-maintained runners, ensure the pull_policy matches the runner’s allowed settings.

Pipelines that do not define a pull_policy are not affected.

For full details on changes and deprecations, please review this page and plan your work accordingly. Please avoid using GitLab during the maintenance window.

Need help?

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.

You can view all current and past IT Alerts on the IT Website.

We appreciate your understanding as we continue improving KAUST IT’s services.

KAUST IT
it.kaust.edu.sa