The Windows Infrastructure Team in ISS at Newcastle University, as the name suggests, is responsible for the Windows Infrastructure of the University, meaning that we’re the ones who look after, among other things:

• Active Directory, which is the management framework for user accounts, managed Windows PCs and servers and the policies that manage settings and software. We delegate control of various aspects of the Active Directory to the appropriate people in ISS and around the campus.
• Exchange, which is the home of the email mailboxes and calendars of most computer users in the institution.
• Central File Store, which most of our users will see as their personal H: drive, and shared storage for a number of schools/services.
• IIS and SQL Servers, offering centrally managed hosting of ASP.NET web sites and SQL databases.
• And various other services which run on Windows Server.

The purpose of this blog is to keep people using our services up to date with developments, share handy tips and more general tech news that we think may be of interest. On that basis, you’re going to get the most out of this if you have a keen or vested interest in the systems at Newcastle University, but if even if you’re nothing to do with the University, but have an interest in technology in general, or enterprise computing using Microsoft technologies in particular, we hope you’ll find something of interest here…