Members of the ICT contribute skills and expertise to supporting part of the OUCS Core network Services. The primary areas of contribution are the Windows expertise required to run the WINS and VPN Services, and to help define policies and procedures for Active Directory integration with DNS.
NB This service is provided to the University as a whole and as such some components of the service may extend beyond the scope of the ECE.
To work together with the Infrastructure Group in defining policies for Active Directory DNS integration with the central DNS servers, and in supporting University IT Support Staff in configuring Active Directory installations.
Active Directory is heavily dependent on the correct functioning of DNS, both for replication between domain controllers, and for clients to locate services. It is therefore essential to ensure that the relationship between DNS and Active Directory is well understood, that implications for systems administrators and central DNS administrators are reviewed regularly, and that policies, configuration information and documentation are modified accordingly.
To assess implications of changes to Active Directory and implement appropriate changes within 3 months of release.
To resolve problems according to the response times defined in the Response Levels document.
To maintain the central WINS service provided to the University. Eventually to decommission said service once all systems that currently rely on NetBIOS name resolution have moved to using DNS.
The WINS service provides a central NetBIOS name to IP address resolution service to the whole University, together with naming standards recommendations. Historically Windows systems have been dependent on NetBIOS to advertise and locate services, while Samba servers and Netware servers can also advertise services using NetBIOS. While technically modern Windows installations can use DNS rather than NetBIOS for name resolution, it is likely that the WINS service will be required until at least 2010. As the NetBIOS name space is flat, naming standards are also crucial.
To ensure 99% availability of the service during standard working hours.
To resolve problems according to the response times defined in the Response Levels document.
To work together with the Infrastructure Group in providing the VPN component of the Remote Access Service.
Primary contribution is Windows and OS X expertise in testing new client releases and managing the distribution of the client software.
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