The Division has now moved authentication away from the old SLIE-DOMAIN to UCSTAFF. The new domain is managed by Client Services Division in Active Directory, and should in theory reduce the administrative load on the Division's IT staff. Information in the Active Directory is drawn each night from the Staff Directory, which means that the Division no longer has to duplicate data entries on new and leaving staff, or details changes. So long as the Switchboard is notified of arrivals, departures and changes in staff details, these should be reflected the following day in the new authentication system.
It also means another step towards single user names and passwords for staff throughout the Division.
The demise of SLIE-DOMAIN also reduces by two the number of servers required in the Division, down to about 20 (depending on what you count as a server).
Now that the move to the server hardware bought in 2001 is complete, attention is turning to further rationalisation of the servers we have. Each server has to be managed to ensure that it is fully up-to-date: with all known security and operational "patches" and updates installed to keep our place as good corporate citizens and maintain a high level of availability to our Divisional clients.
