[1067] in winnt
End-of-March Community Update - Windows 2000 Domains,
daemon@ATHENA.MIT.EDU (Kerem B Limon)
Mon Mar 31 12:11:31 2003
Message-Id: <5.2.0.9.2.20030331115717.04956c48@po11.mit.edu>
Date: Mon, 31 Mar 2003 12:11:18 -0500
To: ITPartners at MIT <itpartners@mit.edu>,
Information Systems <infosys@mit.edu>,
WinPartners at MIT <winpartners@mit.edu>
From: Kerem B Limon <kerem.limon@MIT.EDU>
Cc: Information Technology Leadership Team <itlt@mit.edu>,
Windows Delivery Effort <windows-delivery@mit.edu>
Mime-Version: 1.0
Content-Type: text/plain; charset="us-ascii"; format=flowed
Date: Monday, March 31, 2003
From: Kerem B. Limon
To: ITPartners at MIT, WinPartners at MIT, Information Systems
Cc: Information Technology Leadership Team, Windows Delivery Effort
Subject: End-of-March Community Update - Windows 2000 Domains, Workgroups
and Servers Delivery Project
Windows 2000 Domains, Workgroups, and Servers @ MIT Delivery Project
End-of-March 2003 Community Update
Good morning,
I am writing to give you an update on the status and progress of the
Windows 2000 Domains, Workgroups, and Servers Delivery Project. The
Delivery Team intends this to be the first monthly community update on how
the frameworks for implementing, maintaining, and supporting Windows 2000
domains, workgroups, and servers on MITnet will be phased in over the next
few months.
Status Update - Current Pilot Rollouts
The Delivery Team has been involved in the planning, rollout, and testing
of a number of recent pilot Windows 2000 deployments. The planning behind
these pilots has provided input into our design assistance & review process
development. These deployments are also providing first-hand experience in
some of the real-world challenges and issues involved in migrating to
Windows 2000 & Active Directory from existing Windows NT 4.0 domains in
production environments. Below are descriptions and the current status of
these pilots:
The Office of Sponsored Programs (OSP) began planning and subsequently
moving their administrative systems, (including user workstations and local
Windows servers) into the centrally managed IS WIN.MIT.EDU Active Directory
domain in the second half of 2002. Currently, approximately 30 Windows 2000
Professional and Windows XP Professional machines are in the domain, within
the OSP container under WIN.MIT.EDU. The remaining machines (approximately
10 workstations) are scheduled for hardware replacement over the next few
weeks. These workstations will be delivered with Windows XP Professional
and will be added to the WIN.MIT.EDU domain as they are deployed. As user
machines are migrated into the WIN.MIT.EDU domain, the user roaming
profiles are copied from the local Windows NT 4.0 server to the
workstations. This causes the roaming profile to be written to their AFS
home directory once they log out. Once a user's roaming profile has been
moved to AFS, their Windows NT 4.0 profile is deleted. After the new
workstations have been received and placed into the WIN.MIT.EDU domain, the
OSP plans to demote its Windows NT 4.0 domain controllers to member
servers. All file security permissions will then be reset on the shared
folders to pick up the new access controls.
The Professional Learning Center (PLC) began its planning in late 2002,
opting to move their administrative systems, (including user workstations
and local Windows servers), into the WIN.MIT.EDU domain. However, the PLC
also chose to deploy an independent Windows 2000 Active Directory domain to
address the dynamic needs of their environment, where every week, a variety
of IT courses are taught. The administrative users in the PLC represent a
small user base (~5 users) who utilize a local Windows server to share data
and some select applications, along with server-based printing. Notably,
users' POP e-mail and bookmark data are kept on local server shares. At
this time, the PLC has migrated all of its user workstations, running
Windows 2000 Professional into the WIN.MIT.EDU domain, along with Windows
user profiles previously stored on the local Windows NT 4.0 server, which
are now stored in the user's AFS lockers. By the end of of this week, the
PLC plans to migrate the data from its remaining local Windows NT 4.0
server to a new Windows 2000 server that has been brought up and is a
member of the WIN.MIT.EDU domain, completing this pilot. The PLC plans to
make use of local user accounts on this member server to continue to
provide access to their data for a number of colleagues using Windows in
other MIT departments, who are not part of the WIN.MIT.EDU domain. The PLC
has successfully tested a mobile system running Windows 2000 Professional
(and a member of the WIN.MIT.EDU domain) remotely (across ComCast
Broadband) with a select few applications and for accessing AFS and shared
resources on their Windows 2000 member server, primarily for users working
from home. Separately, the PLC has been in negotiations with Microsoft &
Dell and the Delivery Team for an exploratory project which will help
design their independent Windows 2000 Active Directory domain and begin its
implementation in the coming month.
A new Windows cluster in Building 37 (37-312) makes a set of high-end
graphics workstations running Windows 2000 Professional, featuring a
variety of selected visualization, engineering, and GIS applications
available to MIT students and faculty. These machines are members of the
centrally managed IS WIN.MIT.EDU domain and allow users access to AFS and
other central services. The room has been available to faculty for teaching
since Thanksgiving 2002, and has been open to the MIT population for
off-schedule use since January 2003. Four MIT classes are being taught in
37-312 this semester, and the facility sees heavy off-schedule use by
students engaged in course- and project-work. You can refer to
http://mit.edu/windows/cluster/ for more information or to contact the
project team. This project was made possible in part by a grant from Intel
Corporation.
The New IS Windows Vision Statement
An important development in the Windows arena is the recent vision
statement about IS-provided Windows managed products and services. This
high-level commitment paves the way for a coherent array of client services
for the Microsoft Windows platform at MIT. This statement appears at
http://web.mit.edu/is/help/windows/winadmin_vision.html.
Upcoming Design Assistance & Review Team (DART) Announcement
The Windows 2000 Domains, Workgroups, and Server Delivery Team will
announce the pilot phase of the Design Assistance & Review Team (DART)
within the next two weeks in a separate message. Our first community
milestone, DART, will address the recognized need for assistance to
departments, labs, and centers (DLCs) in making the best choice across a
wide variety of managed products & services in the Windows Server arena.
The Discovery Project preceding this Delivery effort, recognized the
different needs and circumstances of DLCs across campus. It recommended a
number of options for migrating from Windows NT 4.0 domains to Windows
2000-based environments on MITnet. These options include (i) joining the
central WIN.MIT.EDU Active Directory domain, (ii) deploying an independent
Windows 2000 Active Directory domain, and (iii) moving to a Windows
workgroup. The Discovery effort also noted the many factors in the
selection process, including the inherent complexity of Windows 2000
relative to Windows NT 4.0, the abundance of different migration paths, the
constraints posed by MITnet infrastructure, interoperability issues with
MIT products and services, and the rapidly approaching Microsoft deadline
to drop support for Windows NT 4.0. Therefore, to assist DLCs in making
this decision, Discovery recommended that a design consulting resource be
developed to provide design assistance and review services to DLCs to help
evaluate their options and fit their Windows 2000 deployments to their
needs. DART is that resource.
DART will be a standing, volunteer committee drawing its membership from
our colleagues in the DLCs and IS. In addition, DART will draw from the
skills and expertise of teams and groups already working with IS customers
in supporting Windows products and services. Within two weeks, the
Delivery Team will announce more details, including the initial DART
roster, the DART process, and contact information as part of the official
DART announcement, and on the Web site noted in the next paragraph.
New Delivery Team and Windows 2000 Domains, Workgroups, and Servers Web Site
We are pleased to announce the most recent update to the Delivery Project
Web site (http://web.mit.edu/windows-delivery/). Along with updated Project
information, the new "Products & Services" section showcases the structure
of what will be the final framework of on-line documentation, resources,
and interfaces for managed products and services for Windows 2000 domains,
workgroups, and servers, such as DART. You can follow our progress by
checking in on the "Recent Changes" item. Your critiques and suggestions
regarding this Web site are welcome, at windows-delivery-web@mit.edu.
We thank you for your continued patience and support as we begin to take
the most important steps in our work towards better supporting Windows
domain, workgroup, and server environments at MIT.
Sincerely,
Kerem B. Limon
Project Team Leader, Delivery Process
Windows 2000 Domains, Workgroups, and Servers @ MIT
http://web.mit.edu/windows-delivery/
Kerem B. Limon
Project Team Leader
Delivery Process, MIT Information Systems
kerem.limon@mit.edu /e-mail
+1-617-253-1150 /voice
+1-617-258-8736 /fax
