NUIT is in the midst of transitioning University NetIDs to NU Validate, the University’s new identity management system. As of today, NetIDs associated with the following schools and departments have been migrated to the new system:

- Northwestern University Information Technology
- Northwestern University in Qatar
- School of Communication
- Medill School of Journalism
- Bienen School of Music
- McCormick School of Engineering and Applied Science
- School of Education & Social Policy
- Weinberg College of Arts and Sciences

Users who have been migrated to NU Validate receive notification of their NetID’s migration with a prompt to log in and establish security answers to new NetID security questions. It’s a similar process to other secure systems, like an online bank, for example.

Setting-up answers to these questions is critical as it allows for self-resets of forgotten or expired NetID passwords. Moving forward, the NUIT Support Center will not be able to reset forgotten or expired NetID passwords over the phone after December 31, 2009. New NetID Password Reset Guidelines are available with further details.

There are also updated NetID password formation guidelines to note in NU Validate. For example, users preferring a question mark in a NetID password will need to think of another strategy; permitted characters include exclamation points (!) and ampersands (&). New NetID password guidelines are available for review on the Change your NetID password page in NU Validate.

Questions about NU Validate should be directed to the NUIT Support Center.

NUIT Communications

This month, a small group of University researchers, serving as early adopters, will begin testing processes and procedures on Quest, the University’s first shared, large-scale, High Performance Computing (HPC) cluster. NUIT installed the system over the summer to provide HPC at the enterprise level for University researchers.

 The system will be available for use to the general research community beginning winter quarter.

 The new advanced research computing service supports the University’s multi-year initiative to develop an infrastructure that meets current research needs, anticipate future growth, and foster collaborations among researchers and educators. 

 In addition, Research Computing@NU, a new Web site for the research community was recently launched.  Interested researchers can visit the site to collaborate via blog entries, contributes articles, and read about research computing activities at Northwestern.

 Take a look at the video documentary produced by NUIT for a behind-the-scene look at the installation of Quest and to hear what Northwestern faculty and staff have to say about its impact on research at the University.

 Learn more about Quest and how it supports the multiple types of processing required for researchers at Northwestern.

 Sherry Minton
NUIT Communications