Originally posted May 13, 2025

We previously shared updates to our Morningstar Categories, including enhancements to our grouping methodology and framework, and our regular April update. Below is important clarification regarding the timing and impact of changes for Separately Managed Accounts (SMAs) and Models related to introducing five new risk-based Global Allocation categories to replace the current single Global Allocation category.

• Timing for SMAs and Models: Updates for most universes take effect immediately. However, SMAs and models operate on a quarterly production cycle with a three-week lag. Their updates will appear in the July cycle due to the alignment with their Q1 production schedule ending March 31.
• Medalist Rating Impact: Star ratings and rankings will use the current category through March 31. Given the data and rating production cycles, Quantitative Medalist Ratings for SMAs and models in Global Allocation will pause from late May to late August.

The Regular April Category Updates and FAQs have been updated with additional details on the SMA and Model update timing and Medalist Rating impact. Contact Morningstar Support with additional questions or needs.

Originally Posted on Jun. 11, 2025

On Saturday, Jul. 26, 2025, Morningstar will conduct the annual disaster recovery (DR) failover test for our FTP.morningstar.com service. This test confirms the readiness and effectiveness of our disaster recovery plan and ensures Morningstar's capability to seamlessly transition to backup systems if necessary.

On the day:

• 8:00 a.m. CST: Morningstar will perform failover and initial tests, which will last less than an hour and a 20-minute outage is expected during this period.
• 9:00 a.m. CST: FTP.morningstar.com live traffic will connect to its secondary disaster recovery site and be available for testing.
• 3:30 p.m. CST: Morningstar will switch back to the primary site with a second 20-minute outage. Failback may be delayed if testers require additional time.

Participation:

We recommend that clients participate in the testing, to verify all systems within their purview that utilize FTP.morningstar.com and have the proper configured to handle any potential service interruption in the event of an actual failover.

If your firm wants to participate, please contact your Customer Success Manager for assistance.

Preparation:

We have found that most failures during a DR test result from incomplete outbound firewall rules or connections being made directly to an IP address. Both, if left unaddressed, could result in a 5-hour outage during this test as the primary site will be down and Morningstar will be unable to reactivate it before 2:00 p.m. CST.

To avoid this, please follow the below steps:

• Validate that all firewall rules or access lists are complete and detail both IP addresses  below.
• Do not perform testing to our secondary FTP site as it is only accessible when live. Testing in advance is not possible.
• Attempts to access the secondary site outside this test window will result in a connection error, which is the expected behavior.

Firewall rule details:

• SFTP
  • 216.228.224.25 & 216.228.237.25 
  • Port: 22
• Active FTP     
  • 216.228.224.25 & 216.228.237.25
  • Ports: 20,21
• Passive FTP         
  • 216.228.224.25 & 216.228.237.25
  • Ports: 21, 24200-24249
• HTTPS
  • 216.228.224.25 & 216.228.237.25
  • Ports: 443

If you have any further questions or needs, please contact Morningstar Support.

Originally posted Jun. 13, 2025

On Jun. 24, 2025, Morningstar will update our Universal Identity Management password history reset process where users will not be allowed to use any of the previous five passwords used on their accounts when resetting their password. If clients attempt to change their password into a previous one, they will be a prompt informing them have used it already and will need to try a different one. Contact Morningstar Support with any additional questions or needs.