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IT Strategies -> Directories | Storage Management | Centralized Backup | Disaster Recovery

Directories

VCUCC is taking a large role in the design and implementation of University directory services. VCUCC hosts the Novell eDirectory implementation at VCU, providing LDAP services for a growing number of web applications and services at the University. VCUCC is also involved in the University-wide Active Directory implementation, hosting the domain controllers and is currently working to migrate administrative users to the Active Directory.

What does an Enterprise Directory do for me as a student, faculty, or staff at VCU?

The Enterprise Directory Vision is:
“To provide students, faculty, staff, and other authorized users with anytime, anywhere access to the information they need through a simple, yet secure, single identity that is managed through a common, university-wide directory.”

There are a number of authoritative sources for information about people associated with the University. For students, it is the Student Registration System. For employees and approved non-employees, it is the Human Resources System. For others it may be members of a library group such as Friends of the Library. Our vision is to have constituents added to the university-wide directory immediately and automatically as soon as they are approved in the authoritative source. Currently, there is at least a 24 hour delay for moving information from these authoritative sources to directories and files used to authenticate uses to computer resources.

Another key concept of the Enterprise Directory is to have the pertinent information about students, staff, and employees available in the directory to automatically define groups that have access to certain computer resources in the University. Currently, group information is gathered via online web pages or various forms, and then validated against a number of data bases before a person is granted access to a computer resource. While this works, it requires replicating information about people in several data bases. This sometimes results in data not being synchronized, delays in changing data, and more effort in maintaining the various data bases and systems.

Starting in the Fall 2002 Semester, our Enterprise Directory will have all the necessary information about a “VCU Person” in a standards based directory. Several directories and data bases will be eliminated as applications are changed to point to the new Enterprise Directory. New applications will be integrated with the Enterprise Directory as they are implemented.