In order to offer support to the multitude of different computing environments, the LaDS group must rely on teamwork, rotation of duties, and rigorous, ongoing education training, both in the classroom and hands-on. Training is strongly encouraged and takes place in the form of certification courses for many different systems of networking and local operating systems.

Those students, faculty, and staff members who use, or wish to use, desktop personal computers on the UTK network. Network abilities are vital to the University of Tennessee at Knoxville, and the LaDS group serves a variety of clientele in order to make the network useful to as many people as possible. Students who wish to use a network card in their dorms, professors that need reliable computers, and departments that wish to interconnect their resources into a powerful, networked environment are just some examples of the type of customers that LaDS deals with on a day to day basis.

The LaDS mission is motivated by a fervent commitment to excellence in service for our clientele. Quality of service, anticipation and adjustment to changing technological variables, and self-improvement are the cornerstones of the LaDS philosophy. These practices combined with rigorous training is the LaDS philosophy; a philosophy created to deal with the ever-increasing and ever-evolving world of desktop and networked computing.