IT Alert: Migration to new VPN system

Dear UAA Community,

UAA IT Services is migrating Virtual Private Network (VPN) services to Palo Alto Global Protect.

Why are we making this change?
Last year, the Office of Information Technology (OIT) began migrating UAF and System Office users over to a new VPN solution called Palo Alto Global Protect. UAA’s current VPN solution is end of life and can experience slowness. UAA IT Services has been testing Global Protect since last fall and will be transitioning all UAA campuses effective immediately. A major advantage that VPN users will notice is significantly faster download speeds while connected to the VPN service.

How does this impact me?
Global Protect is available for use now. The old Cisco AnyConnect VPN service will be decommissioned over spring break, so please act now to set up Global Protect.

How do I install and use Global Protect?
On Jan. 31, IT Services will automatically install the new client on managed devices. If you would like to begin using it sooner, you can download the new client from several locations.

IT Services has created several resources to guide users through the installation and configuration process for the Global Protect VPN client, which can all be found at the Seawolf Tech Portal.

Special note for VPN and MFA users
Your preferred DUO method will be used without the normal Duo prompt that allows you to select your method; so, if you have mobile push configured, you will simply get a notification on your mobile device to approve. The client will not give you any indication that this happened. We are working with OIT to improve this behavior; however, for technical reasons there is not currently a more user-friendly solution.

How do I get help?
Please contact the Technical Support Center at (907) 786-4646, email us at uaa.techsupport@alaska.edu or open a ticket at the Seawolf Tech Portal.

January Archive