ITAC Activities

Active Directory/Lighthouse Project

It might be beneficial to address the Active Directory topic prior to the Bureau IT/IM Reorganization discussion. Sam Martinez (NT TAC lead) is one of the WRD reps on the Lighthouse Team and works in Denver. We might be able to ask him to attend part of the meeting to address questions and provide technical expertise.

1. Bureau-level implementation of Active Directory (AD) - Concern regarding potential problems that could be faced in smaller Districts.

Background:   Most Districts already utilize a "domain" associated with their NT servers and desktop/notebook PCs - it is a "collection" of administrative, user, and computer-resources information that users have access to when logging-in and accessing their computer resources. The idea behind the Bureau implementation of Active Directory is that all four disciplines will "share" a common set of administrative/user/computer-resources information. On paper it sounds ideal, but in application, could have dire implications in some of our Districts.

Current plans, as described by the Lighthouse Team (Bureauwide AD implementation team), are to distribute AD Domain controllers in offices similar to the manner in which the Lotus Notes servers are distributed, thus smaller offices (less then 50 employees) will not have a local AD domain controller. If WAN connections to the AD Domain Controllers are unavailable, i.e., a cable cut that would disconnect a WRD office from the Wide Area Network (WAN), problems may arise that could prevent District users from accessing computer resources on their Local Area Network (LAN) if they do not have a local AD domain controller. In certain, and notably key situations, such as a flood event, a WRD District may be unable to perform the work associated with carrying out its mission based on the inability to access computer resources needed to assess the event situation and provide needed information to cooperators, emergency/health/safety personnel, and the public. The obvious solution is to push for each District, regardless of size, be provided a local AD domain controller to be placed on that District's LAN. One final note, the Lighthouse team is preparing to move the implementation from the lab out into our real-world operations, starting as early as October. As of last week, there are plans to "form" a team who's purpose will be to support and maintain this AD implementation. Presently, the membership of this team has not been determined and to the best of my knowledge, funding has not been finalized and may fall short in what is actually needed for a Bureau implementation. My "take" from Linda Peng (team leader of the AD Implementation Team - Lighthouse) is that the team has been making requests and recommendations regarding this support team, but are not receiving information/answers from those who control the purse strings.

2. Computer Security Incident Response - Develop procedures to handle the next computer security crisis (i.e. Code Red) when it happens.

Background:   I recall we took a vote on prioritizing fiscal resource-distribution at the last meeting, and the topic of computer security incident response fell to (or near) the bottom of the priority list. In light of the recent problems associated with Code Red, and the fact that DREN shut down the HTTP-related traffic on our network, which had ramifications that included denying cooperator and public access to our data, we should visit this topic in an attempt to develop a cookbook incident-response procedure to be implemented at both the District and Discipline levels.