This page includes answers to several frequently asked questions Computer Services has received about the Office365 and Active Directory Migration. The page will be updated throughout the project, as additional details become available. If you have additional questions, please email austinmigrationproject@mccombs.utexas.edu.
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What's happening?
McCombs will be migrating two key pieces of our IT infrastructure from locally run services to University-run services. Those two services, Active Directory and our Office365 tenant, are what we use to manage user accounts (the McCombs accounts you use to log onto your computer and access email), manage computers and servers, and where our McCombs email is sent and stored. This is an infrastructure change, and not a wholesale re-alignment of how IT services are delivered for McCombs. Computer Services will still be doing the same things we’ve been doing, only now we will be using the same services as the rest of campus.
Why is this happening?
A few years ago, the University’s Internal Audit Committee expressed some concerns about the institutional risks stemming from the choice the school made to manage some key IT services internally. They strongly suggested that the school consider adopting more centrally-run services. Dean Hirst and Dean Hartzell worked with IT services, the UT CFO and CIO, and other campus leaders to discuss and evaluate the impact of adopting campus IT services in lieu of running them ourselves. These discussions were focused on the importance of maintaining the level of service necessary for McCombs faculty, staff, students, and external constituents and minimizing the impact of any transition on our users.
Beyond mitigating our risks, migrating these IT services provides some additional benefits (e.g. efficiency gains). Having received assurances from central IT regarding our service-level needs, the school will begin moving to the Austin Active Directory and Office365, both of which are currently used by the rest of campus. We realize this is a significant change in our approach to technology, but we remain committed to ensuring that our students, faculty, and staff are provided with the appropriate IT tools and services necessary to accomplish our goals.
What's changing overall?
By the end of OctoberMarch, Computer Services expects to have the following things completed:
- Faculty and staff will be using their UT EID to log into their computers and access resources.
- Desktop and laptop computers will begin to be re-named according to the UT naming convention and migrated from the McCombs domain to the Austin domain. This will primarily be something for people who remotely connect to their computers to be aware of.
- Mailboxes will be copied from the McCombs Office365 tenant to the Austin Office365 tenant. Your email address won’t change, but you will be connecting to a new server and will now be a part of the University’s Global Address list.
- Since the University manages email distribution groups differently than McCombs does, we are deploying a new group email service which departments will be able to use to manage distribution lists for groups where the University’s services don’t meet our needs.
Between now and OctoberMarch, Computer Services will be making changes behind the scenes to try to minimize any disruption caused by this migration.
Will I need to change my email address?
No, your email address will stay the same after the migration to the Austin Office365 tenant. You will be connecting to a new email server and be part of the University's Global Address List.
Will I need to change settings on my computer?
Yes, there will be settings that require change at two main points during the project, when you begin logging into your computer with your UT EID and when Office365 mailboxes are migrated in OctoberMarch. Additional details will be sent to you at the time of those migrations and available on this wiki page.
What's not changing?
- Your email addresses will stay the same. McCombs faculty, staff, and PhD/MBA students will still have McCombs email addresses (ending in @mccombs.utexas.edu).
- Tech Support and all other IT services will be handled the same way. Tech Support will have less control and autonomy in some areas, so we will have to work through ITS more frequently, but we will still be delivering the same services and making sure that there’s no business impact beyond the inconvenience of having to make these changes over the Fall.
- We will still be delivering web, database, network, and related services locally and are not planning to further migrate to centrally-run services.