IT News

From Raspberry Pi to Python: IT Division Inspires Next Generation

May 20, 2026

Berkeley Lab’s IT Division opens its doors every spring to some of its youngest visitors, groups of energetic second graders eager to explore the world of computers, coding, and networking. For one week each year, students from local elementary school, Sylvia Mendez elementary school come to the Lab for an immersive experience designed to introduce Read more »

Computing as a laboratory: How Molecular Foundry scientists model at the nanoscale

December 12, 2020

By Erica Yee • January 29, 2019 The Science IT Profiles series highlights how the Scientific Computing Group supports the work of Berkeley Lab researchers spanning various disciplines. In six of the seven facilities of the Molecular Foundry, scientists at benches or instruments, in lab coats or clean room suits, are hard at work creating Read more »
How the Materials Project connects computational and experimental materials science

December 12, 2020

By Erica Yee • August 2, 2018 The Science IT Profiles series highlights how the Scientific Computing Group supports the work of Berkeley Lab researchers spanning various disciplines. To invent the first commercially viable electric light bulb, Thomas Edison and his assistants tested thousands of materials to use for the filament until they found one Read more »
Given COVID IT Can Help You With Your Asset Inventory

November 23, 2020

During the 2019 Wall-to-Wall inventory campaign, a collaboration pilot program between IT and Berkeley Lab Property Management used and implemented BigFix to certify the existence of DOE tagged assets. Any DOE-barcoded system running BigFix on LBL’s network was automatically verified for inventory purposes, without the barcode being scanned. This saved tremendous time for property reps… Read more »
Before You Upgrade to macOS Big Sur

November 12, 2020

Apple has recently released their newest operating system, Big Sur. We would like to caution our users to be careful before installing this upgrade, see MacOS Big Sur compatibility: Find out if your device will work with the new OS. These are the questions you need to ask yourself before leaping:Is your computer compatible?Are all… Read more »
Druva inSync Licensing Update

November 12, 2020

The Druva inSync service will be changing effective January 1, 2021. To maintain the current service model and pricing of $57 annually, the data volume allowed to be backed up will be limited to a total data volume of 1TB per user. For users that exceed 1 TB of data volume being backed up, the… Read more »
Update Chrome Now

October 22, 2020

In October, Google confirmed a serious Chrome security issue. This security vulnerability is a memory management error that can enable the execution of malicious code on a user’s computer, see Google reveals Chrome zero-day active attacks. IT recommends that users immediately update Chrome by restarting it. Users should verify they are running at least version 86.0.4240.111.… Read more »
The New Google Chat is Live for Berkeley Lab

October 1, 2020

All LBNL users should now be able to see the new Chat features in Gmail by refreshing Gmail on their Web browsers and updating their mobile applications. Remember that chat notifications on your mobile device are disabled until you install and authorize the new Google Chat app on your device.For more information on using… Read more »
Moving to Google Chat on September 30th, 2020

September 25, 2020

We’re excited to share that we’ll be transitioning everyone at the Lab to Google’s next-generation collaboration product, Google Chat. Chat has a modern UI, team rooms that support better team collaboration,, bots to help you be more productive, and integrates with Gmail so that your chats can be accessed directly from Gmail. Beginning on September 30th,… Read more »
Active Directory User Account Password Policy Change

September 23, 2020

IT Support Services in collaboration with Cyber Security have published new guidelines on Active Directory (AD) user accounts and password policies, see Active Directory Account Policy. All AD user accounts will require a password change every 365 days.Beginning November 1, 2020 all AD account passwords that are set to “Never Expire” including service accounts, will… Read more »
[Completed] Saturday, September 12, 2020 – Multi Factor Authentication Upgrade

September 14, 2020

On Saturday, September 12, 2020, between 10 PM and 12 AM Sunday, IT will be performing an upgrade of the servers that handle Multi Factor Authentication (MFA) for the Lab. While we expect limited to no interruption to the MFA service during this period, there is a potential for outages lasting as long as 30 minutes. … Read more »
Avoid Cyber Blocking, Address Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 Now!

September 2, 2020

As of January 14, 2020 Microsoft stopped support of Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2. Computers running Windows Server 2008 and 2008 R2 will no longer receive security patches. It is highly advised that all systems running Windows Server 2008 be upgraded immediately. As of September 15, 2020 all Windows 2008 servers will be blocked unless registered for… Read more »
Critical Windows Server Updates Must Be Installed

July 21, 2020

DHS has issued Emergency Directive 20-03 on this vulnerability which can be viewed here: https://cyber.dhs.gov/ed/20-03/. (Article quoted below for posterity)Here is a description of the vulnerability:https://portal.msrc.microsoft.com/en-US/security-guidance/advisory/CVE-2020-1350 (Article quoted below for posterity)Please note that while the vulnerability only affects servers with DNS services, Cyber is required to report on the patch status today (July 20, 2020) and… Read more »