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.
26 February, 2026
KAUST Community,
The following planned maintenance activity is scheduled to help keep KAUST IT services secure and reliable. Please review the details below and plan accordingly.
To maintain the security and stability of our development platforms, GitLab will be upgraded to the latest patch release, version 18.9.1, which addresses multiple high-severity vulnerabilities.
When
Saturday, 28 February 2026
7:00 AM to 12:00 PM
The actual upgrade activity is expected to take approximately one hour. The remaining window is reserved as a precaution to ensure service stability.
Impact
GitLab will be unavailable during the maintenance window.
Repositories, pipelines, merge requests, and related services will not be accessible during this time.
Action Required
Why This Is Required
GitLab version 18.9.1 includes important security patches addressing multiple high-severity vulnerabilities. Applying this update ensures continued protection of KAUST development assets and services.
More details on the release can be found here:
GitLab 18.9.1 Patch Release Notes
Thank you for your understanding.
KAUST IT
it.kaust.edu.sa
