Office of Administration First to Centralize Exchange Servers

The Office of Administration (OOA) is collaborating with IET to consolidate their existing decentralized Microsoft Exchange servers into a centralized service provided through the campus Data Center. Microsoft Exchange and Outlook are the primary tools used for email and calendaring in the OOA organization, and message stores are maintained on several discreet departmental servers. With the evolution of technology and increased need for business collaboration, the strategy of discrete servers has become more difficult to manage. A centralized, consolidated Active Directory and Exchange service throughout OOA has the potential to accomplish the following goals:

• Broadly leverage technology expertise and resources to reduce costs, reduce duplicate efforts and/or allow redirection of resources to other efforts.
• Provide for greater consistency in technology solutions and standards, thereby supporting and encouraging technical collaboration and partnerships within OOA and between OOA and the campus.
• Support departmental business needs while providing an improved infrastructure to support inter-departmental and campus wide business processes.

Facilities will be the first OOA organization to commence migration in June, followed by the other administrative departments scheduled at appropriate intervals through the balance of 2005. A total of approximately 1,400 staff members, representing eight departments, are involved in this transition.