UC Davis Information & Educational Technology

UC Davis Exchange (XEDA) Services

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Sponsor: Office of Administration, and Information and Educational Technology

Status: Available as a service. See service description below.

Description:

At UC Davis, the Microsoft Active Directory and Exchange services have been nicknamed "XEDA". The nickname is the reverse of ADEX = Active Directory and Exchange. Active Directory is a core element of the Windows platform that includes tools to manage the identities and relationships that make up network environments. Microsoft Exchange runs within Active Directory and provides tightly integrated productivity tools, including mail, calendaring, and contact information, etc.
The XEDA service was created in 2005 through a collaborative project with Office of Administration and Information and Educational Technology. It is maintained at the campus data center on a 24x7 basis.

XEDA is a service available to all university employees and departmental affiliates, including student employees. Once an organization joins, the XEDA service uses payroll feeds and information in the campus computing accounts database and online campus directory to add and maintain subscribers in the Global Address List lists and to create mailboxes.

Over time, the ability to schedule meetings and view shared calendars across organizational boundaries will continue to increase as more individuals and organizations join XEDA. In addition, subscribers have access to names, business phones, department, and titles for everyone in the system. You can also organize people by distribution list and create shared resources (meeting rooms, AV equipment, etc.).

As of September 24, 2007, approximately 3140 campus staff and faculty were subscribers (for a total of 3281 user mailboxes and 141 resource mailboxes, or 840 more subscribers than in mid-March). Campus departments with the largest XEDA subscriber base are: Office of Administration (1559 mailboxes), Information and Educational Technology (601), Student Affairs (248), Office of Research (140), and Office of Resource Management and Planning (77).

Services and features:

  • Access to a mailbox from a subscriber’s desktop, over the Internet, or using IMAP.
  • Access to a calendar, with the ability to schedule meetings with other XEDA faculty and staff subscribers, and the option to share a calendar with other subscribers.
  • Online directory of all campus XEDA subscribers including users, groups, and lists)
  • Individual task lists, journals, and personal folders.
  • Default 150MB storage quota per subscriber. Storage can be increased in four increments: 300MB, 500MB, 1GB, 2GB. If a quota is reached, XEDA will no longer allow the sending of messages, but incoming messages are never blocked.
  • Fax service. Subscribers can send and receive faxes to and from their email program. Faxes are email messages, with or without attachments. All incoming attachments can be read via Adobe Acrobat Reader. (Current main user: UCD Purchasing Department.)
  • Access by Blackberry devices and any PDA or cell phone running Windows Mobile.
  • Integration with the campus computing accounts service, UCD Login IDs and Kerberos passwords.
  • Virus protection on messages and attachments.
  • Daily back-up of server with 30-day retention of data for disaster recovery.
  • 30-day retention of deleted items in individual mailboxes.

Email and calendaring data can be accessed in any of the following ways:

  • Through Microsoft Outlook (predominant email program), Entourage (for Apple computers), and IMAP email clients;
  • With a handheld device running Windows Mobile (BlackBerry); or
  • Over the Web, from a browser.

Costs:

Several service alternatives are offered. In March 2007, the following rates were submitted to the Campus Rate Group for approval:

Mailbox Storage and Monthly Cost Per Box

  • 150MB ..................... $7.50
  • 300MB ..................... $8.75
  • 500MB ..................... $10.25
  • 1GB    ...................... $14.00
  • 2GB    ...................... $21.50

Note: Charges are based on the number of mailboxes owned by the organization unit and the storage quotas of the mailboxes. Additional license and monthly charges apply for Blackberry users ($70 one-time charge for a database license and $1.25 per month). The Blackberry and fax services will generate phone charges (incl. cost of the device, a monthly data charge and cell phone charges). 

As the number of accounts continues to grow, ultimately hardware and software adjustments will be required. Rates, however, are expected to decrease over time as the adoption rate increases. An ongoing review process has been developed to ensure the lowest possible rates.

Further Information

To join XEDA, two options are available:

  1. If the department has a technical resource familiar with Microsoft Active Directory, that person can create and manage the Organization Unit (OU) required for XEDA. The person would contact the XEDA service at adhelp@ucdavis.edu, and the technical team will schedule an interview to explain the process.
  2. The department can contact IET’s Desktop Enterprise Solutions unit at desktop@ucdavis.edu. The OU will be created and maintained on a cost-recovery basis.

For technical or service information: