Enterprise:UoE
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Contents
University of Edinburgh: Case Study
Environment
- Over 10,000 Windows PCs
- ~1,000 Macs
- ~2,000 Linux
- Very devolved environment
- Faculties and departments require ability to control settings as much as possible at their devolved level
Browsers
- Internet Explorer and Firefox supported on Windows
- Both supported to accommodate users' preference
- Aim is to support both browsers equally, except:
- Where a security incident causes us to block browser or browser feature
- Where site or plugin will only work with 1 of the two browsers
- now rare on external sites
Browser Usage Statistics
- IE to Firefox percentages estimated to be similar to "real world"
- ~70% use IE, 30% Firefox
- Similar demographics
- Engineering and science-based faculties tend to have very high levels of usage of Firefox
- increasing in other faculties
- Usage in business oriented departments much less so
- not helped by there being some plugins and business applications not compatible with Firefox
- Engineering and science-based faculties tend to have very high levels of usage of Firefox
Settings
- Internet Explorer
- in image in default configuration, use Group Policies and Internet Explorer Maintenance client side extension to configure
- Firefox
- Installed via GPO
- Packaged as MSI
- for flexibility and ability to upgrade individual components, Firefox application, dictionaries, etc are packaged as seperate MSIs
- Controlled using FirefoxADM
- allows flexible control and ability to devolve and override settings
- familiar interface for controllers of devolved areas
Major Upgrades of Firefox
- Similar as with many educational establishments, especially Universities
- Only changed once per year, during "quieter" summer period (May-Sept) inbetween academic years
- So, as of summer 2007, just moving to Firefox 2.X now
- We require to support Firefox 2 until summer 2008
- Was a concern this past 2 years because Firefox 1.0 and 1.5 became unsupported in April/May
- Major version change process
- Will release a "Test GPO" of the next managed version to devolved Computing Officer usually in May for pilot testing
- Will release connected new applications (eg. plugins) as soon as possible to test alongside
- Work with feedback and also engage with academics and our internal applications division to make sure all internet and intranet applications pass testing
- Maximum 3 months turnaround
Minor Upgrades of Firefox
- When released gauage risk based on release notes, bugzilla entries
- Keep an "ear to the ground" regarding the patch quality in first few days/week after patch release
- weary of regression issues
- recent multiple quick patches
- Change process:
- Create a patch for Firefox (usually new MSI)
- Announce to managers of devolved areas for their testing and communicating change to their users
- Usual turnaround of about 2-3 weeks for patch from release to deployment
Technical Issues We've Had/Wishlist
- Issues with managing profile
- very difficult to control with any level of granularity the likes of certificates, password files, profiles.ini, etc
- Controlled prefs "tattoo" user's preferences
- Would prefer to have Mozilla authorised MSIs and group policy ADM (ADMX in Vista) templates
- Would prefer to be able to have a high level of control over allowed add-ons and themes
- be able to set blacklists or whitelists
- Would like to have a similar level of control over OS X and Linux setups
- on Windows, *MUST* be group policy based as well as this is familiar interface and also what many auditing tools are based on.