2006 Experts Conference Survey White Paper

8/14/2019 2006 Experts Conference Survey White Paper

1/22


2/22

Copyright 2006 NetPro Computing, Inc. All rights reserved.

Contents of this document may be quoted with proper attribution.This white paper is for informational purposes only. NetPro makesno warranties express or implied, in this document.

NetPro Computing, NetPro, and the NetPro logo are eitherregistered trademarks or trademarks of NetPro Computing, Inc. inthe United States and/or other countries.

Microsoft, Active Directory, Windows NT, Windows 2000 andWindows Server 2003 are either registered trademarks ortrademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other product and companynames mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respectiveowners.

NetPro Computing, Inc. 4747 N 22nd Street, Suite 400 Phoenix,AZ 85016-4774 USA

DEC-WP-0806-2006


3/22

2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results

Copyright 2006 NetPro, Inc.

Table of Contents

Executive Overview ............................................................................................1Introduction.........................................................................................................3About DEC...........................................................................................................4Survey Demographics ........................................................................................6Highlights and Analysis .....................................................................................8

I. Issues and Priorities ......................................................................................8

II. Current Practices..........................................................................................9III. Technical Environments ............................................................................14IV. Directory Tool Preferences .......................................................................17


4/22

2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results


NetPro Computing, Inc.

Corporate Office

4747 N. 22nd

Street. Suite 400

Phoenix, Arizona 85016 USA

Telephone: 602-346-3600

FAX : 602-346-3610

Email: [email protected]: http://www.netpro.com

European Office

Telephone: +31 36 540 5959

Monday - Friday 08:00 - 17:00 CET (+1GMT)

Sales

USA and Canada: 800-998-5090

International: +1 602 346 3630

Worldwide Technical Support

Telephone: 602-346-3670

Monday - Friday 06:00 - 18:00 MST (-7GMT)

Email: [email protected]


5/22

2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results Page: 1


Executive Overview

This white paper summarizes the findings of a survey taken at the NetPro 2006 Directory

Experts Conference, which was held March 26 through 29 in Las Vegas, Nevada. The

goal of this survey is to gain a better understanding of the issues facing attendee

organizations, the relative priority of those issues, current tool usage and common

practices for directory and other network infrastructure management tasks. We

conducted a similar survey at the 2005 Directory Experts Conference in Vancouver and

found the results were widely appreciated by the directory community. In addition to the

2006 responses and analysis, this years report will also examine how trends have

evolved since the 2005 survey. We plan to continue conducting these surveys at future

DEC conferences and welcome your comments and suggestions for future questions and

areas for analysis.

High points from the survey:

Demographics

2006 DEC attracted 530 delegates from 240 companies throughout 25 countries

235 attendees representing a good cross section of organizations responded to thissurvey

Survey respondents are primarily technicians, work within large corporate andgovernmental IT organizations, are responsible for Active Directory management and

support large numbers of directory users.

Findings

Compliance and Security remain the fastest rising directory management priorities forthe second year in a row

Auditing AD changes is the most important day-to-day requirement

35% of responding organizations have a user provisioning solution in place, another37% are in progress or plan to implement a solution within 24 months

44% of responding organizations rely on paper-based processes to handle directorychange management and 15% make changes without any specific approval process

Most organizations (55%) consider themselves world class or better than averagein their directory management performance

87% of responding organizations are using or are planning to use Service LevelAgreements

AD Support and Network Availability are the two most common SLA attributes

Responding organizations have strong interest in ITIL; 55% of respondents arecurrently using ITIL and another 24% are considering its use

Change management is the most commonly implemented ITIL practice


6/22



MIIS deployment among DEC attendees has grown from 31% in 2005 to 43% in 2006

Quality of products is the most important factor for selecting infrastructuremanagement tools

58% of responding organizations do not have a preferred AD tool vendor. NetPro is

the 1st place choice among companies with a preference


7/22



Attendee Survey Results

IntroductionThe purpose of this paper is to share information gathered through a survey of attendees

at NetPros ninth Directory Experts Conference (DEC) held March 26 through 29 in Las

Vegas Nevada. The 2006 conference attracted 530 delegates representing 240

companies and arriving from 25 countries. A record 235 participants, representing a

good cross section of attendee demographics, completed the survey over the course of

the conferences four days.

The intent of this survey was to gather information that would have value when shared

with attendees, analysts, trade press and members of the directory community.

Collecting actual data and experiences from conference attendees provides a wealth of

information on the issues facing the directory community, the relative priority of those

issues, current tool usage and common practices for directory and other network

infrastructure management tasks. As primary research, survey data is critical for

supporting or disputing anecdotal information from other sources.

The 2006 survey builds on the results of a similar survey conducted at the 2005 Directory

Experts Conference in Vancouver and gives us the opportunity to examine trends and

changes between the two years.

We plan to continue conducting these surveys at future DEC conferences and welcome

your comments and suggestions for future questions and areas for analysis.

This document summarizes the information captured through the survey along with data

analysis, trends and our insights on the implications of the findings. We believe it

provides solid data for comparisons with peer organizations and many ideas for

organizations to consider as they evaluate their directory management efforts and look

for high value opportunities for improvement and investment. We hope you find the

results as fascinating as we did!


8/22



About DEC

General Information

Since its inception in 2002, DEC has been dedicated to advancing the skills of the most

experienced Active Directory users. The theme for 2006, Achieving Secure EnterpriseIdentity Management and Access Control with Microsoft IAM Technologies, served as the

centerpiece for the conference, which featured a wide variety of sessions led by the top

experts on Microsoft Active Directory and MIIS. DEC included in-depth technical

presentations, roundtables and facilitated panel discussions designed to encourage

extensive delegate participation and networking. The conference also incorporated a new

pre-conference workshop The Masters of Disaster led by HPs Guido Grillenmeier and

NetPros Gil Kirkpatrick, which built upon real-life experiences from the field to provide

hands-on instruction for handling different Disaster Recovery scenarios, such as deleted

users, malicious attack, and fatal group policy configuration.

2006 HighlightsDEC 2006, the ninth event of its kind, continues to surge in popularity, exceeding last

years record attendance by 200 attendees and growing the number of companies

represented from 147 to 240. Participants enjoyed presentations, interactive discussions

and thought provoking commentary by a renowned group of Active Directory authorities

including top-rated strategists and speakers from Microsoft.

Stuart Kwan, Microsofts Director of Program Management, Directory Services,kicked off the event by providing a preview of Microsofts Identity and Access

Management Strategy and Roadmap.

John Enck, Research Vice President, Gartner spoke on the technical and marketdirections of identity management and challenged the goal (and reality) of reaching

a single directory given heterogeneous technology environments.

Wook Lee, Directory Service Architect, Hewlett Packard delivered a humorous andinformative session that somehow managed to equate active directory support roles

with the line positions in a restaurant kitchen.

Guido Grillenmeier, a Senior Microsoft Services Consultant with Hewlett-PackardConsulting, presented an AD Masters session on how to hide confidential data

within Active Directory, covering both normal AD permissions and two more

advanced options.

Nick Nikols, Senior Analyst, Burton Group provided an analysts view of MIIS in histalk MIIS: Where is it Going and What to Expect? He described the roles MIIS

covers, how it compares with its competition and explained its fit into Burtons

processes.


9/22



A whole new set of Active Directory experts were on the scene this year too. They

included Paul Sims and Jason Heyes (Microsoft) on Active Directory Disaster Recovery,

Mark Lawrence (Microsoft) on Microsofts Insight into Group Policy, Jeff Bohren (BMC)

on the Role of MIIS in Compliance and Danny Kim (FullArmor Corp) on the Details of

GPO in Vista among others.

Other DEC 2006 highlights included:

A spirited MVP panel discussion, hosted by Microsofts Peter Houston, whichfeatured well-known industry experts such as Dean Wells, Joe Richards, Stuart

Kwan, Guido Grillenmeier and NetPros Gil Kirkpatrick sharing their insights and

opinions on AD, MIIS and future directions for identity management.

"IAM All Night: Gambling with Identity," the interactive sequel to the popular AD AllNight hacker/administrator shoot out from DEC2005 in Vancouver. IAM All Night

featured a clueless company (Misanthropic, Inc.), a less than perfect environment

and a laundry list of identity management needs. Participants gambled,

synchronized and provisioned into the wee hours of the night.

A visit by the ever popular Microsoft Technology Truck

As the directory community matures past the early adopter stage, DEC has grown to

addresses its technical education needs. In 2005, DEC expanded to include a track on

MIIS and in 2006, DEC added new Masters tracks for both AD and MIIS in parallel with

its standard tracks. Living up to the conferences expert billing, these tracks provided

bleeding edge content for the most experienced, technically advanced delegates. Based

on attendee feedback, the new format was a big success, and we hope to continue these

tracks and add new ones where warranted at future DECs.


10/22



Survey Demographics

Understanding the demographic make-up of the survey participants is vital for placing the

survey results in a proper context. In 2006, 235 attendees completed this survey, a

significantly larger sample than in 2005. These participants represented approximately

44% percent of the overall pool of conference attendees. Given the size and breadth ofparticipation, we are confident that the survey results constitute a representative sample

of attending roles and organizations.

The respondents of this survey:

Are primarily technicians

o 75% are self-described hands on practitioners (consultants, administrators,

system engineers, or other technicians)

o Systems Engineers are the most popular category for the second year in a

row, accounting for slightly over 40% of attendees

o Architects were the most popular write-in responsibility, accounting for 4% of

overall respondents

o IT Managers, Directors and VPs almost doubled in number from 2005, but as

a percentage of the overall pool of respondents dropped slightly from 14% in

2005 to 11.5% in 2006

Work within a large IT organization

o 63% are members of either a corporate (52%) or government (11%) IT

organization

o Other categories included consultants (14%), Service Providers (5%)

Software Providers (10%) and other/blank (7%)

o Of respondents designating the size of their IT organization (159 out of 235)

90% are from IT organizations with over 100 employees A remarkable 70% work for very large IT organizations with over

1000 employees

Are responsible for Active Directory

Survey respondents could specify multiple areas of responsibility. Of those listing at

least one area of responsibility, Active Directory is the clear leader, followed by DNS

and security. As the trend from 2005 shows, MIIS continues to increase in

popularity.

2006 2005

Active Directory 90% 96%DNS 54% 59%

Exchange 19% 29%

MIIS 39% 24%

Audit/Compliance 33% 31%

Security 45% 54%

Entire Network 13% 14%

Other 14% 9% Table 1: Job Responsibilities


11/22



Delving more deeply into survey respondents job responsibilities, the survey discovered:

Survey respondents working for corporate or governmental organizations:

o Have multiple responsibilities 60% are responsible for at least three of these areas

19% are responsible for 5 or more Only 17% were responsible for 1 of the 8 categories listed in Job

responsibilities table

o Respondents supporting AD also supported 60% - DNS 48% - Security 36% - MIIS 36% - Audit/Compliance 20% - Exchange 14% - Entire network 11% - Other

o Support large numbers of directory users

Number of Users Supported

Over 20,000 users 55%

5,000 to 20,000 users 30%

1,000 to 5,000 users 8%

500 to 1,000 users 2%

100 to 500 users 3%Less than 100 users 3%

In a sign of an improving economy, more consultants are showing up at DEC

The percentage of respondents who work for consulting companies nearly doubled

rising from 8% in 2005 to 14% in 2006. However, the number of attendees listing

consultant as their primary job responsibility rose more modestly from 18% to

21%. Slightly over 1/3 of the consultant respondents are internal consultants

rather than employees of a consulting company.


12/22



Highlights and Analysis

I. Issues and Priorities

Compliance and Security continue to gain in priorityFor a second year in a row, compliance and security rank the highest when determining

which areas are gaining in priority over the previous year. In 2006, compliance and

auditing gained first place in the list, followed by improving Windows security, and

improving directory security taking third place. Perennial issues such as improving

service quality, reducing user support costs and improving productivity are also gaining in

priority in many organizations, but not at the same pace as compliance and security

issues.

Controlling and auditing changes for corporate compliance - 73% ofrespondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 2% rate it as

lower priority

Improving Windows security - 67% of respondents rate it as having a higherpriority than last year and only 1% rate it as lower priority

Improving directory security - 63% of respondents rate it as having a higherpriority than last year and only 1% rate it as lower priority

Strengthening disaster recovery capabilities is a new area in the 2006 survey.53% of respondents rated it as having a higher (38%) or a much higher priority

(15%) than last year and only 1% say the priority is lower.

Increasing speed in resolving production issues has the lowest ratings with only42% of respondents rating it as having a higher priority than last year and 3% rating

it as lower priority. Still, these ratings reflect a slight rise in emphasis from 2005,

indicating that directory environments may not be as stable as they should be.

4% of the respondents say simplifying sign-on is not a priority in theirorganizations, but more surprisingly, improving directory team productivity and

reducing per user support costs also had 4% of respondents saying they were

not an organizational priority.

Respondents face many unique issues when trying to achievesecurity and compliance objectives

Survey participants were asked open-ended questions on specific security and

compliance concerns. Many responses were received, but the gamut of issues and

challenges fell into four common areas.

External concerns (outside of the control of the respondents company) Example:the number of different agencies and regulations involved in achieving compliance


13/22



Operational concerns Examples: how to incorporate AD into existing changemanagement processes and setting up the human workflow for user rights

approvals/denials (provisioning)

Organizational politics Example: getting management to limit the number ofpeople in remote locations with the authority to make changes in access rights

Technical Example: security audit log collection and alerting

On a day-to-day basis, Auditing AD changes has supplantedMonitoring AD Health as the most important AD requirement

When asked to specify their 3 most important requirements for AD, respondents ranked

Auditing AD changes as the most important requirement, elevating it from second place

in 2005. Disaster Recovery also moved upward in 2006. These changes highlight the

increasing importance of AD in supporting sensitive operations, necessitating careful

control of changes and fast recovery in case of disaster.

2006

Rank

2005

Rank Top AD Support Requirements

Relative

Weight

1 2 Auditing AD changes 54

2 1 Monitoring AD health 47

3 4 AD disaster recovery 36

4 * Automated provisioning 33

5 6 Implementing AD change management processes and tools 32

6 3 Delegation of AD rights 28

7 * Access Control 24

8 5 GPO change management 21

9 7 Implementing AD troubleshooting tools 10

* Not included in the 2005 Survey II. Current Practices

Most organizations consider themselves better than average whenrating their overall directory management performance

Its called the Directory Experts Conference for a reason; 55% of attendees consider their

organizations as above average in directory management. The percentage of attendees

rating their organizations adequate or above rose from 61% in 2005 to 81% in 2006.

55% consider themselves either world class (18%) or better than average (37%) 27% rate their performance as adequate 16% consider themselves as less effective than we wish 2% consider themselves novices


14/22



AD team members cover many functions

Are AD support teams overworked? Some certainly think so! Almost all corporate and

governmental survey participants support many critical functions. The table below shows

the percentage of respondents supporting each of eight critical directory team functions.

Critical Directory Team Functions % Supporting

Directory administration 100%

Directory troubleshooting 96%

Supporting AD users 96%

Enforcing security policies 95%

Planning and "get ahead" efforts 95%

Supporting corporate auditing/compliance efforts 91%

Creating and generating reports 89%

Monitoring/Tuning performance 89% Almost three quarters of the respondents supported all 8 listed functions, and all

respondents covered at least 4 of the 8.

Number of Functions Supported % Supporting Cumulative %

All 8 Functions 73% 73%

7 out of 8 Functions 13% 86%



4 out of 8 Functions 1% 100% For many respondents, supporting these AD functions is only part oftheir responsibilities

As encompassing as they seem, these functions are only part of the responsibilities ofmany respondents. They may also support Exchange (19% of respondents), MIIS (39%)

or other Microsoft infrastructure software; have responsibility for additional functions such

as audit/compliance (33%) and security (45%); or even support the entire network (13%).

Thus, almost 25% of respondents devote less than a quarter of their time to the eight

surveyed functions. Conversely, 21% must be severely overworked as they devote over

100% of their time!

Total Effort Devoted to Listed Functions % Respondents

Over 100% 21%

75% to 100% 17%

50% to 75% 17%

25% to 50% 21%Less than 25% 24%


15/22



87% of responding organizations are using or are planning to useService Level Agreements

Service Level Agreements (SLAs) are standard practice in most survey respondents

organizations, with usage gaining slightly over 2005. How and between whom SLAs are

implemented varies considerably between organizations.

SLA usage among respondentso 75% are currently using SLAs (73% in 2005)o 5% plan to implement SLAs within 6 months (4% in 2005)o 7% plan to implement SLAs in the future (5% in 2005)o 13% have no plans to use SLAs (18% in 2005)

Most SLAs are between IT and internal end users. Of organizations reportingthat they use SLAs:

o 69% have SLAs between IT and end userso 40% are between IT and an external network service providero

59% are between two areas within IT Slightly more than half the organizations using SLAs cover 2 or more of the

categories listed above.

o 43% have SLAs in only one category (30% are between IT and end users)o 30% have SLAs for 2 categorieso 22% have SLAs for all 3 categories

AD Support and Network Availability are the most common SLAattributes

SLA attributes vary widely from organization to organization. No attribute was common

across all organizations, but on average, organizations used 4 of the 7 attributes listed

below. The figures below cover organizations currently using SLAs.

SLA Attributes 2006 2005

AD support 65% 73%

End-to-end response time for AD 45% 58%

AD uptime 60% 70%

Exchange support 51% 51%

End-to-end response time for Exchange 29% 41%

Exchange uptime 46% 46%

Network availability 63% 72% Surprisingly, relatively few organizations back SLA performance with

penalties or incentivesOnly 32% of responding organizations (up from 30% in 2005) have penalties or

incentives. Lack of incentives for internal employees may indicate a lack of confidence in

the metrics being collected and/or ITs ability to influence those metrics. For SLAs with

external organizations, this low percentage indicates that IT organizations are using SLAs

for measurement purposes rather than for pay-for-performance.


16/22



Responding organizations have strong interest in ITIL

Interest in ITIL continues to grow. Awareness is at an all time high and most

organizations are at least considering it.

A total of 55% of respondents are currently using ITILo

22% of respondents are strong believers in ITIL and have implementedthroughout our organization

o 33% of respondents use ITIL where appropriate

Of the remaining respondentso 24% are considering ITIL, but have not formally implemented any of its

practices

o 12% are not considering ITIL at this time, but may in the future

Only 9% of responding organizations had no interest in ITIL

Change Management is the most implemented ITIL practice

ITIL practices are not uniformly implemented in client organizations. Change

Management is the most popular practice among confirmed ITIL users (strong believers

and where appropriate) with Service Management following closely behind.

ITIL Practice by Usage

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

70%

80%

90%

Release

Management

Security & Policy

Management

Configuration &

Auditing

Service

Management

Change

Management Over half of the respondents rely on informal and manual approachesfor managing AD changes

Despite the pressures applied by security and compliance concerns, a surprising number

of respondents still make changes without a formal approval process, and paper remains

the most common method for tracking changes.

15% - Informal -- Make changes as needed without a specific approval process 44% - Formal, manual -- Use a formal configuration control board (or equivalent

group) and changes are assigned and tracked by paper.

41% - Formal, automated -- Have a formal change management system withdefined workflows and a review/approval process.


17/22



Homegrown tools led in AD change management automation

When asked in an open-ended question which tools they used for AD change

management automation, respondents named numerous tools. Only a few tools received

mentions from more than one respondent. The following three options received the

highest multiple responses.

19% -- Homegrown tools 18% -- Remedy (BMC) 11% -- Peregrine (HP)

User provisioning has strong interest within the AD community

A strong majority of respondents have implemented, or plan to implement user

provisioning over the next 24 months.

35% -- have a user provisioning solution deployed today 18% -- have a deployment in progress

14% -- plan to deploy within 12 months

6% -- plan to deploy within 24 months 28% -- have no plans for user provisioning

Management of user accounts is the most popular driver for selectinga provisioning solution

Respondents were asked to rank the top challenges they were trying to solve with their

user provisioning solution.

Management of user accounts (provisioning and deprovisioning... 44%

Auditing and reporting on identity and access 34%

Synchronization of identity information across your environm... 34%

Password management (password self service, password synchro... 29%Management of roles 24%

Management of groups 23%

Providing additional self-service capabilities to end users 19%

Replacing a home-grown application a with supported product 7%

White pages 6%

Other 1% Microsoft has the largest share of the currently installed provisioningsolutions

43% -- Microsoft Identity Integration Server 26% -- Home-grown application 8% -- IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 6% -- Sun Java Identity Manager 5% -- Novell Identity Manager


18/22



III. Technical Environments

Exchange is already deployed in most surveyed organizations

Already mainstream, Exchange is nearing market saturation. Most (72%) attendee

organizations have fully deployed Exchange and another 2% have a deployment inprogress. Only four respondents (


19/22



Sharepoint has already made significant inroads in the enterprisemarket

Sharepoint, Microsofts intranet web portal and collaboration software is installed in over

half of the respondents organizations and is on track to reach Exchange-like levels of

usage over the next couple of years. Just over one quarter (26%) of the respondingorganizations have no plans to use Sharepoint. When asked an open-ended question on

how their organizations used Sharepoint, respondents most common uses included:

Document management, collaboration, knowledge management, internal portals, and file

sharing.

Does your organization use Sharepoint?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

No Still

considering

Yes, within 12

months

Yes, within 6

months

Yes, within 3

months

Yes, already

using Most DEC attendees are eagerly awaiting Longhorn

Running well ahead of the classic adoption curve, 61% of survey respondents plan toinstall Microsofts next generation operation system (code named Longhorn) within twelve

months of its release. But a sizeable 27% are sitting on the sidelines and have yet to

formulate implementation plans.

When is your organization planning to implement Longhorn?

0%

5%

10%

15%

20%

25%

30%

35%

40%

No plans yet More than 12 months

after general release

Within 12 months of

general release

As soon as it is

generally available


20/22



Federated Identity Management is still bleeding edge in the DECcommunity

Federated identity management, an arrangement that allows multiple enterprises to share

the same identity information is just starting to take hold among leading edge DEC

attendees. Less than half of the survey respondents are even considering Federation at

this stage and only 10% have implemented it their organization. By next year, NetPro

expects to see a modest uptick in deployment as approximately 11% of this years

respondents plan to implement it within the next 12 months.

Does your organization use Federated Services?

0%

10%

20%

30%

40%

50%

60%

No Still

considering

Yes, within 12

months

Yes, within 6

months

Yes, within 3

months

Yes, already

using Maintaining security during migration is the biggest challenge facingcompanies during technical migrations

Operational issues such as maintaining security (1st place), balancing between day-to-

day support and migration efforts (2nd place) and preventing service level degradation

(3rd place) topped the list of technology migration headaches. Security concerns easily

topped the list, but clearly the need to keep production environments safe and fully

operational caused more concern than the tactical details of performing the migration.

The top tactical issue is controlling/documenting changes, which on a relative ranking fell

closely behind the top 3 concerns. In a sign on the state of the current IT job market,

finding/developing skilled technical resources came in at a distant 5th place in relative

rankings.


21/22



IV. Directory Tool Preferences

99% of respondents use tools to manage Active Directory

Respondents were asked an open-ended question allowing them to list as many (or as

few) software tools as they use for directory management. Virtually all respondents usesome form of tools to manage their AD environment. However, the breadth of

automation and depth of functional coverage varies significantly. Some respondents rely

solely on homegrown tools (mostly scripts), native (Microsoft provided) AD tools or large

operational frameworks such as MOM or HP Openeview, while others have amassed

quite a collection of point best of breed products.

The table below was compiled by tallying the vendors mentioned in each respondents list

of tools. The table only includes the top six vendors. Many other tools, including Hyena,

Tivoli, and SunONE, were mentioned but fell below 1% of the total.

Rank Vendor Mentions

1 Microsoft (all) 39%2 NetPro 24%

3 NetIQ 15%

4 Homegrown 11%

5 Quest 6%

6 HP Openview 2% Quality ranks first when selecting tools

For the second year in a row, quality (stable, bug free) ranks far and away in first place

as the most critical attribute when selecting software products for managing directory

infrastructure. 2006 DEC survey respondents ranked tool selection criteria very similarly

to their 2005 counterparts in both position and relative weight. The only significant

difference is the reversal of breadth of product capabilities (which rose from 11th

to 7th

place in 2006) and dedication to exceeding your expectations in product quality and

support (which dropped from 7th

to 11th). This drop is surprising given the emphasis on

product quality as the most important attribute. Interestingly, operational factors

dominate the top six slots for both years, while the functional characteristics which define

what the tool does, such as breadth of product capabilities, best of breed capabilities,

use and support of best practices and depth of coverage, fall into the middle of the

pack for requirements.


22/22


2006

Rank

2005

Rank Factor

Relative

Weight

1 1 Quality of products (stable, bug free) 65

2 2 Total cost of ownership 34

3 3 Scalability 29

4 4 Ability to integrate with other tools 28

5 5 Quality of customer support 22

6 6 Ease of use 207 11 Breadth of product capabilities 20

8 8 Best of breed capabilities 15

9 10 Use and support of best practices 14

10 9 Depth of coverage 13

11 7 Dedication to exceeding your expectations in product quality... 7

12 12 Meets commitments to you 7

13 14 Community support (forums, eBooks, web site resources) 314 13 Other 2

ROI is an important factor for most tool buyers

Although many respondents often purchase tools for tactical reasons, they still expect a

return from their investments. ROI remains important to buyers, even gaining somewhat

in importance since the 2005 survey.

ROI is a critical requirement for 27% of tool buyers and an important factor to anadditional 44%

28% rate ROI as one of many factors But only 4% say ROI is not important (as opposed to 8% in 2005)

Most organizations do not have a preferred AD tool vendor

Preferred vendor status illustrates the strength of the relationship between a vendor and

its customers. It also indicates whether products purchased from a given vendor are

viewed tactically or strategically. The low overall rate of preference highlights the tactical

nature of most tool purchases. In contrast, given its relative market share, NetPros 1st

place finish speaks highly of its products and relationships with its customers.

58% do not have a preferred tool vendor Of respondents expressing a preference:

o NetPro takes 1st

place with 41% of the preferences (up from 18% in 2005)

o Microsoft moved from 4th

place in 2005 to 2nd

place with 36%

o NetIQ took 3rd

at 10%

o Quest dropped from 2nd

place in 2005 to 4th, garnering only 3% of the

preferences in 2006

Date post:	30-May-2018
Category:	Documents
Upload:	questsoftware
View:	217 times
Download:	0 times

2006 Experts Conference Survey White Paper

Documents