Cup.edu to Calu.edu Domain Project -- Part II

Good day everyone,

Key things to understand from the mumbo jumbo below:

• UTS has done everything they can to understand our current environment.
• We have tested what we are going to do.
• We have documented the help we need from you and will be communicating this the best we can.  Key point is that we DO need your help :-).
• There is no way to guarantee that you will not have problems during this project.  It is our intention to minimize the potential for problems and to put processes in place that enable our customers to quickly report any issues you have and to resolve these issues in a timely manner.  With any luck only a small percentage of you experience problems.  More details to come in the next few days.
• We need you to read this information and ask any questions that you have.

Ok, now to give some more details...

Now that you have a general idea of what Active Directory is and know that we need to move your User Account, computer and email box from cup.edu to calu.edu let's dive a little deeper into the process and what you can expect.

UTS has partnered with Microsoft to develop a process to make this move as risk free and smooth as possible.  To date the following has occurred:

1. To the best of our knowledge we have documented the current environment including user accounts, computers, email boxes and also a list of what programs and resources our customers access. 
• Resources?  What do you mean by "resources"?  Technology folks like to use generalized words to lump together "things" that they manage to ensure they are all on the same page.  So... a resource could be a printer or a computer or a "N drive".  Basically we tried to document everything that we could about the things we manage. 
2. We put together several process documents that outline how we will transfer user accounts, computers and email boxes.
3. We put together several testing documents that outline what we need to test to ensure we minimize the risk of this project.
4. We developed a "lab" or "test" environment (basically a practice area that will not interrupt the day-to-day work of our customers) to test the above processes to ensure they work and to ensure the UTS staff is trained on the processes.
5. We completed a small pilot project where we migrated several user accounts and computers within the production environment.
• Phrases like "pilot project" and "production environment" sound pretty technical, what does this actually mean? 
• A "pilot project" is simply a sanity check where we make our testing as real world as we can.  In the case of this project we took the accounts of some UTS personnel and put them through the above processes to ensure everything will work.
• A "production environment" is nothing more than the environment that we use on a day-to-day basis to get our work done.  For you, the computer you use every day to do your job resides in the "production" environment.  The N: drive you access resides in the "production" environment. 

We feel that the above has covered about 75% of the risks that this project brings to the table.  We do have outstanding issues with access to a couple applications and we are working through these to try to resolve.  It is our intent to resolve all issues identified but due to limited time and a lack of information about the environment we expect there to be some issues that will not come to light until we start moving the "resources" you use everyday.  We are continuing testing activities to cover as much of the risk as we can.

Ok, hopefully this has provided you a glimpse into a little more of the big picture in reference to this project.  Please check back often as there is a lot more info to get into your hands.  Please let us know if you have any questions or concerns!

Thanks!

Andy