Reliable and up-to-date client contact information is imperative to OARnet's ability to resolve outages, keep your organization informed of scheduled maintenance events and enable your organization to request service changes.
Client Contacts
Clients maintain their contact information for their organization through the OARnet Gateway.
Only authorized contacts are able to:
- Request service changes
- Receive notifications
Well maintained contacts:
- Enables OARnet to process requests efficiently
- Keeps you informed
- Keeps you secure
The OARnet Support Center (NOC) can only accept change requests and trouble reports from eligible Gateway contacts. This helps keep your organization secure and prevent service interference as well as help OARnet provide efficient service.
Roles
OARnet has defined contact roles to enable efficient and effective communication between your organization
and OARnet.
All required roles must have a contact assigned (even if it's the same contact). First Name, Last Name, Title, email and at least one phone number (office or mobile) is required for each contact.
Keeping up-to-date
Clients are responsible for removing individuals who are no longer with your organization from the Gateway and assign a different contact to their previous roles. It is important to assign new contacts to roles in the event of an extended staff leave for the duration of that timeline.
Failure to keep your contacts current may result in interruption of:
- Outage and maintenance notifications to your organization
- Members of your organization being able to open tickets with the Service Desk and resolve issue
- Service requests for bandwidth increases, DNS changes, additional IP addresses and other technical requests
- Security information to your organization about spam alerts, phishing attacks, DDOS and other internet abuse.
Child locations and organizations
If you have multiple sites or organizations, by default they inherit the contacts from your main site. You may override those contacts on a site or organizational level.
How to update your contacts
- Review the OARnet Usage / Contact Policy and roles carefully.
- Identify who at your organization will maintain your contact information and have them follow steps 3-5.
- Review the Gateway information page for registration and IP address access. The first two people to register will automatically be "Gateway Editors" and be able to make contact changes.[1] [2]
- Create a contact list by clicking Contacts in the submenu. Click Add Contact. First Name, Last Name, Title, email and at least one phone number (office or mobile) are required for each contact.
- Then go to the Roles page by clicking Roles in the submenu. Assign your contacts to roles by clicking the edit button next to the role. Each required role must have a contact, even if it’s the same contact.
- To add additional contacts to roles, click the Add Role button.
- Keep your contacts and roles up-to-date to match any changes in your staff to prevent any miscommunication or interruption in service.
How OARnet uses your contacts
Outage and Troubleshooting
OARnet will notify and work with your, Escalation 1-3 contacts (Business Hours) and After Hours 1-3 contacts (outside Business Hours) in ascending order. In the event OARnet is unable to reach the designated contacts, the Last Resort contact will be used. For each contact, OARnet will attempt the office and mobile numbers. If there is no answer a voicemail will be left before moving onto the next contact. When all designated contacts are exhausted the issue is escalated internally as a last recourse.
After Hours Support Opt-out
Please read the OARnet policy regarding After Hours Support Opt-out. Sites designated as Emergency Services are unable to Opt-out.
Configuration Changes
The Support Center will only accept configuration change requests from individuals in the Administrative and Technical contact roles. Administrative, Technical or DNS contact roles may request DNS changes. Configuration changes include bandwidth increases, temporary cap removals or any change that could adversely affect a client's connection or services, such as router or domain name changes. OARnet will contact your Administrative contact for any request made from individuals not in authorized roles.
Security
OARnet will notify your Security Operations contacts for alerts and notifications related to security operations and incident response such as spam alerts, phishing attacks, DDOS, copyright violations or other Internet abuse notifications. For legal, security related service changes or policy related communications, OARnet will contact your Security Executive if one has been identified. If a Security Executive is not identified, we will contact the Executive contact. Note that at some organizations the CISO may not be a member of the networking or core IT groups.
Trouble Reports
OARnet can only accept trouble reports from listed contacts. We will consult with your Administrative contact for all incidents reported from non-listed contacts.
Client Support Centers or 3rd Party Organizations
Centers and 3rd Party contractors as Contact Roles to work with the OARnet support. Please be advised OARnet is unable to verify individuals from these groups and therefore will assume the individuals are authorized contacts. Our NOC will work with individuals from Support Center or 3rd Party organization as long as that group is identified in the appropriate roles.
Please do not hesitate to contact us if you have any questions.
Gateway Access
Please visit the Gateway information page to learn how to register for an account.
