Active Directory Provisioning Tool
I follow Twitter pretty closely. I use it to keep up with what the intelligentsia are saying about Active Directory, what new products are coming out, and generally the scuttlebutt on the industry. I follow analysts, customers, writers and most importantly directory services MVPs.
So I was a little surprised to see this comment recently: "If you had money to spend on an AD provisioning tool, Quest, NetIQ, ScriptLogic or something else? I'm going to evaluate all 3 for now." Umm, what about Imanami? That is exactly what GroupID Synchronize does, provisions users into Active Directory.
So, I did a little digging to see why we weren't part of that discussion and found something interesting. Imanami doesn't show up until the third page on the term "Active Directory provisioning tool" but is the fifth result on the first page for "Active Directory provisioning."
Is that the problem, people view AD provisioning software as a tool rather than a vital piece of infrastructure software? GroupID Synchronize does that first most important piece of a new employee's life, provisioning them into Active Directory and getting them access to the network and productive. Is that a tool's job?
Maybe it is. Maybe I'm being sensitive to semantics and GroupID Synchronize is an Active Directory provisioning tool. It's a tool in the toolbox that IT employs. For certain, Imanami strives to make all of its software light on the enterprise...so it doesn't have a big footprint on the network or require an inordinate amount of IT resources. So it is a tool, a very valuable and helpful tool.