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JBSA News
NEWS | Aug. 31, 2010

ADX migration to begin at Randolph next month

By Robert Goetz 502nd Air Base Wing OL-B Public Affairs

Airmen and civilian employees who use computers at Randolph will soon be part of the Air Force Network, a change that will provide each Air Force employee with a unique e-mail address they will keep throughout their career.

The process to move Randolph from its local network to the AFNet, called the Active Directory and Exchange migration effort, will begin next month.

"Since February of last year we have been advising the base of what's going to happen," said Tomm Sutherland, 902nd Communications Squadron information technology project manager. "ADX is back on track and we will recommence the migration on Oct. 18."

Mr. Sutherland said most of the ADX migration at Randolph will take about nine weeks and the work will be completed in phases. The 902nd CS will be the first squadron affected by the migration.

"We will work our way through all the organizations, including all the tenants, until they are all fully migrated," he said.

For most Randolph computer customers, the migration will be relatively uneventful, except for some e-mail messages and pop-up instructions. The only things asked of users are to follow those instructions and keep their electronic mailboxes within their limits.

"That's an important part of this migration - getting those mailboxes down," Mr. Sutherland said.

Presently, mailbox sizes range from more than one gigabyte down to 50 megabytes for normal users. Under ADX, senior decision makers will see the size of their mailboxes limited to one gigabyte, mid-level support staff will have their boxes limited to 500 MB and normal users' mailboxes will double in size to 100 MB, Mr. Sutherland said.

"There will be a larger network, with many more users, so we have to limit size," he said.

Mr. Sutherland said all e-mail accounts, computer logons and computer accounts will be part of the AFNet domain by mid-December. Functional systems such as SharePoint will be migrated later, but everything will be on AFNet by May.

Keesler and Lackland Air Force Bases are already migrated to the new domain, but eventually every base in the Air Force will be part of the network.

Mr. Sutherland said Airmen won't have to apply for new accounts when they start assignments at different bases, resulting in more convenience and productivity. All they will need are their common access cards.

"It can take two weeks or more to get e-mail and user accounts at a new base or temporary duty location," he said. "Now, as long as the base has been migrated (to AFNet), an Airman won't have to wait. The Airman can plug into any CAC-enabled computer and immediately start to work. That will increase productivity."

The migration replaces the current first.last@randolph.af.mil with the first.last@us.af.mil e-mail address. If more than one person has the same first and last name, the address will be first.last.#@us.af.mil.

Any personnel who have questions about the migration can call the 902nd CS communications focal point at 652-2015, option 6, or contact their unit's client support technician. A team from Scott AFB, Ill., and Peterson AFB, Colo., will be on hand during the process. Scott AFB is the site where maintenance will be performed and e-mail accounts will be serviced.

"There will be broken glass, but we'll have a team to clean it up," Mr. Sutherland said. "They will be on-site for us."

In addition to more convenience and productivity and an increase in e-mail capacity for most users, the Air Force Net will offer other advantages, he said.

"It will be easier to maintain accounts since there will only be one database of accounts," Mr. Sutherland said. "It also increases security."