IT Services has been providing a Windows-based domain structure for many years. The domain ensures central authentication and provides the authorisation concept for network drives and end devices. With the help of the domain, it is possible to find the same working environment on different end devices (roaming profiles).

A domain is used for the logical grouping of objects such as users, servers, PCs, printers, etc.. These objects are each described by an object name and specific attributes.

The core of a Windows domain is the Active Directory. It contains all objects belonging to the domain. The domain thus represents a closed security system whose objects can only be accessed by personal logon.

The name of the domain of the University of Oldenburg is: w2kroot.uni-oldenburg.de.

Every person who has a user account in the domain is a member of the domain.

The user data(home directory and profiles) of the domain members are stored on a highly available, fail-safe storage system. A special feature of this system are Snapshots. This feature offers all domain members the possibility to restore lost data themselves without outside help. The handling of snapshots is described here.

The regular installation of patches, service packs or security rollout packages closes security gaps in operating systems and application programmes. The IT services operate a Windows Software Update Service (WSUS) for their users, which regularly requests from Microsoft whether there are new updates. New updates are then made available on this server and automatically downloaded and partially automatically installed on some domain PCs by domain policy.