The Division of Information Technology is getting ready to upgrade the technology that faculty and staff use to gain access to the information they depend upon in their daily work at Metro State.

Every morning when the College’s staff and faculty turn on their Windows-based computers, they must log in using a user name and password that allows them access to a number of active directory services, such as U and Y drives, and print services. The active directory structure is where employees (and students) get permission to access the College’s systems.

“The old active directory was set up in a way that isn’t as efficient in our current environment,” says Yvonne Flood, associate vice president of information technology. “Basically, [the IT team] has built a new, more efficient structure for active directory services.”

In the past few weeks, all of the IT staff’s computers have been migrated to the new active directory environment for the purposes of testing and working out any kinks. Beginning this week, a four-person team from IT will begin contacting various departments and offices to schedule what amounts to what Flood says is a very quick and painless transition to the newer, more flexible environment.

“[The migration] involves everybody’s accounts, so it’s a pretty big process,” says Flood. “It’s not very disruptive, however.”

For about three years, the team has worked with outside consultants to rebuild the active directory structure to be more efficient and secure. Led by IT Professional Kenneth Garcia, the team will switch all faculty and staff from the Admin1 domain to the Admin domain.

According to Garcia, users will maintain the same username and password and should not notice any difference in the way that they log in each morning. Garcia says the migration should average 10-20 minutes per machine.

Currently, those faculty and staff who use Macintosh computers (roughly 25 percent) don’t access the active directory in the same way as their PC-based peers. According to Garcia, the Mac portion of the migration is still being finalized but the plan is to begin moving those users to the new structure by the beginning of the fall semester. Additionally, all students and faculty will be migrated to an upgraded Academic domain—which will be separated from the new Admin domain for efficiency and security purposes—later this summer and continuing through the fall.

Garcia notes that users who operate a College-issued laptop in conjunction with a desktop machine must have both available during their scheduled migration to ensure appropriate access to computing resources on campus.

The IT team plans to distribute an informational document that walks users through the new login screen and addresses common questions, but faculty and staff can contact the Information Technology Service Center at 1-877-352-7548 (2-7548 from any campus phone) with any questions or concerns about the migration.