Health Sciences Active Directory (AD) (Public)

WVU ITS and HSC ITS are rebuilding a tool called Active Directory (AD), which determines what resources faculty and staff can access based on their roles at the University. The teams will be separating these two Active Directory systems to give HSC more independence on system changes.

If a service outage is expected or there will be a change in the way you interact with a particular service, you will be notified of the change beforehand.

Below are frequently asked questions about these changes.

What is changing? 

WVU ITS and HSC ITS are working together to rebuild a tool called Active Directory (AD), which determines what resources you can access based on your role at the University. Central ITS maintains a primary Active Directory, under which the current HSC directory resides. The two Active Directory systems will be separated to give HSC more independence on system changes. 

Why is this happening?  

As HSC continues to grow, the current Active Directory structure limits control over what HSC ITS can do. That can make it more difficult to give you access to the resources and tools that you need. Currently, the speed and flexibility with which HSC can grant access to services is limited by this underlying architecture. This change will give HSC ITS more autonomy in system changes, which should speed up its ability to grant access to services you need. 

Are there any other benefits? 

Health Sciences employees will have more secure access to programs and applications. HSC often deals with sensitive data that must be protected to ensure HIPAA compliance. This process ensures that HSC and the data it collects continue to meet those standards. The HSC technology environment will be more closely aligned with WVU Medicine. Data Loss Prevention policies will be consistent. 

When is this happening?  

The onsite migration schedule will be announced by HSC ITS and Communications when finalized.

Will my desktop computer be affected by this change?

Yes. Onsite Microsoft Windows computers at the HSC Morgantown, Charleston and Eastern campuses will be affected if they are connected to the Health Sciences domain. MacOS, Linux, iOS and Android devices are not affected. 

These migrations will begin at midnight and will take less than 15 minutes to complete. Completing this work requires an automatic system reboot, so make sure all data is saved on your computer at the close of business on your scheduled date, then log off but leave your computer powered on.

HSC VPN Users: If you work remotely and access WVU resources using the HSC VPN software (Global Protect), you will need to follow these instructions by March 27 to complete the migration of your remote computer.

Researchers: If you have a computer that cannot be rebooted on your scheduled upgrade date, please contact the HSC Help Desk at hsc_helpdesk@hsc.wvu.edu or 304-293-3631, option 1. 

What if something is not working correctly after a change? 

Contact the HSC ITS Help Desk at 304-293-3631 option 1.