What Is It?
The UIC Active Directory (AD) is an implementation of Microsoft Active Directory. It provides integrated authentication and authorization to systems and services across the Chicago and regional campuses.
Features
| Built-in Account Management |
The UIC Active directory features a full set of user accounts for all UIC students, staff, and faculty. The Technology Solutions will monitor and maintain all user accounts in a central branch of the AD tree, thus relieving individual departments of this responsibility. |
| Synchronized Passwords |
When using Technology Solutions-maintained AD accounts, its users will have the same password for Active Directory, email, other Technology Solutions services, and many secure UIC websites. The Technology Solutions provides a web page for account management in AD and other Technology Solutions-offered services. |
| Reduced Cost |
Technology Solutions has invested in the hardware and software to provide the UIC campus with a reliable AD infrastructure. This allows departments to leverage AD without the expense of servers and time in maintaining network infrastructure. The Technology Solutions maintains servers hosting our Root and AD.UIC.EDU domains in the UIC AD forest. The Technology Solutions also provides the back end FSMO and DNS servers needed to provide services in the Active Directory at UIC. |
| Autonomy and Control |
Even though the UIC AD is centrally managed, departments may elect to have their own branch in the Active Directory tree. This will give the department the flexibility to publish computing resources and file shares on department-owned servers. The departmental branches are secured from the rest of the AD forest and departments will have full control of their branch. Departments can add containers, servers, objects, and organizational units under their top level Organizational Unit (OU) as needed. This gives the flexibility to organize unit data and resources according to your departmental structure. |
| Support |
Technology Solutions provides various levels of support with regard to the UIC AD forest. Technology Solutions administrators are available for consulting and problem tracking should you have technical issues with your departmental branch. The Technology Solutions gives the UIC AD forest top priority when allocating consulting and support resources. The Technology Solutions also maintains a reactive and proactive support contract with Microsoft Premier Support for the Active Directory. |
| Savings
|
By using the central services offered by Technology Solutions, departmental administrators can focus on improving rather than maintaining IT resources. IT support personnel are freed from the day-to-day maintenance of users and accounts. This can allow IT support staff to spend more time developing and expanding computing resources at the departmental level. Technology Solutions' goal is to lower the cost of using Active Directory on the UIC campus. This will allow departments to address specific computing needs by spending money on active computing resources instead of infrastructure. |
Requirements
A UIC department or college will sponsor each Organizational Unit. OU administrators will be asked to provide documentation of their current network / OS environment before their OU is created.
Who Is Eligible To Use It?
Where Can I Get It?
Select the Request Update in Active Directory button located on this page.
How Do I Use It?
Here is an Active Directory quick guide for Mac users and Windows users to help you get started.
How Much Does It Cost?
This service is funded by the Basic Bundle. OU administration support from Technology Solutions is billed at an hourly rate of $55 / hour.
How Can I Get Support?
If you are experiencing a problem with this service, please report it. If you just have a question, feel free to ask us.
Service Levels
| Service Request Fulfillment Time |
2 business days |
| Incident Resolution Time |
1 business day |
| Service Availability |
24x7 |
| Maintenance Window(s) |
Wednesday mornings from 3:00am to 6:00am |
| Service Notification Channel(s) |
IT Service Notices |