I currently work at the University of Kansas (KU) and before that Stanford University, to be particular the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center (SLAC).  Collaborating with various Higher Ed institutions the past several years has shown a marked increase in the Microsoft side of the house.  To give you an idea of our current environment, here are some of the things we (Enterprise Systems) have been working on the past two years I’ve been at KU:

Migrated from Novell to Active Directory (AD), although we’re still leveraging Novell for IDM.  We currently have 550,000+ objects in AD, and we still have several departments to bring in.

Upgraded from Exchange 2003 to Exchange 2010 and Forefront Online Protection for Exchange (FOPE)

Implemented SCCM 2007 for Windows systems management

Implemented central file storage using EMC products for the backend, using CIFS as the frontend

Restructuring AD domains and Forests to decrease the administrative overhead and provide a primary authentication mechanism for the entire University

Determining Key Performance Indicators for AD and Exchange

Implemented SCOM 2007 to monitor AD and Exchange

Implemented Confluence for collaboration within IT and other technology providers at the University

Implemented Data Protection Manager (DPM) for backup of AD and Exchange

Built a test and QA environment to better facilitate upcoming changes to the environment

Almost ready to raise the AD domain level to 2008 R2

I’m sure I’m missing things, and my next post will be some of the things we’re getting ready for – like Centrify to provide AD for OS X and Linux systems.  If anyone would like more info on a particular area, please drop me a line.  I’d be happy to discuss.