Blackboard Access Issues Resolved

March 29, 2024 10:19 a.m.
Outage category: 
Blackboard
Location: 
NA
Status: 
Closed

A small number of users are reporting issues accessing Blackboard. Blackboard is aware of the issue with their hosted service and confirms the issue is resolved for most users.

Initial symptoms: 

Users receiving “DNS server error” or “This site cannot be reached”

Duration: 
04/25/2023 2:23 pm
Impact to Mason: 

Users cannot reach Blackboard.

Affected Services: 
Blackboard Courses, Class Collaborate (formerly Blackboard Collaborate Ultra)
ROOT CAUSE ANALYSIS
Cause: 

On April 25th, a change was executed to enhance our DNS services to prevent DDoS events like the one that took place on 4/20. This change was not successful which propagated incorrect DNS information across the internet.

Resolution: 

The change was rolled back but DNS is a pull- based request and took time to propagate the correction across the internet.

Prevention: 
Anthology plans to re-execute the upgrade to our DNS services to prevent issues like the one experienced on 4/20. This change is targeted for Friday 4/28. We will provide a maintenance notice regarding the date/time of this scheduled change.
STATISTICS
Service Team: 
LSS