2008 Experts Conference Survey White Paper

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A e ee S r e Res s - H gh gh s a A a s s

netpro 2008 directory experts conference

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netpro 2008 directory experts conferenceattendee survey results - highlights and analysis

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ExEcutivE OvERviEw

As the leading provider o solutions or Windows in rastructure management, NetPro iscommitted to helping leverage the power o Windows through intelligence and best practicesboth within and beyond our products. Understanding the issues and needs o the Identity and

Access Management community helps us build better products and provides the community withknowledge and best practices to improve the productivity and e ectiveness o its members.

This white paper summarizes the ndings o a survey taken at the NetPro 2008 Directory ExpertsCon erence, which was held March 3 through 5 in Chicago, Illinois. The goal o this survey is togain a better understanding o the issues acing attendee organizations, the relative priority o thoseissues, current tool usage and common practices or directory and other Windows in rastructuremanagement tasks. We have conducted similar surveys annually at Directory Experts Con erencessince 2005 and ound the results were widely appreciated by the Identity and Access Managementcommunity. In addition to the 2008 responses and analysis, this year’s report also examines howtrends have evolved since the previous surveys. We will continue to conduct these surveys at utureDEC con erences and welcome your comments and ideas or new questions and areas or analysis.

H gh po s rom he s r e :n Demographics

o 2008 DEC attracted 565 delegates rom 290 companies throughout 28 countries

o 280 attendees representing a good cross section o organizations responded to this survey

o Survey respondents are primarily technicians, work within large corporate andgovernmental IT organizations, are responsible or Active Directory management andsupport large numbers o directory users.

n Findings

o User provisioning/ de-provisioning is the toughest challenge or IT organizations. 34%o respondents rate this area as “problematic” or “out o control” at their company.

o Delegating administrative rights (29%) and Compliance Reporting (27%) take 2nd and3rd place as challenges.

o The survey reveals a slight drop in job satis action rom 2007 - 70% o 2008respondents are satis ed or very satis ed vs. 74% in 2007

o Workload/work hours top the respondents’ list o worst aspects o their jobs

o Despite complaints about long hours, most respondents (64%) work 40 to 50 hours perweek; only 3% work 60 to 80 hours; and only 1% work over 80 hours

o Respondents are split on the e ectiveness o their organization’s identity and accessmanagement per ormance, 29% rate their organizations as “less e ective than we

wish” while an equivalent percentage rates themselves above averageo SCOM/MOM is the most used IT management ramework with 59% o IT organizations

reporting its use (55% o overall respondents)

o Only 31% o IT organizations consider their in rastructure management e orts to bewell-automated

o Getting better tools and automation tops respondents’ wish list or the 2nd year in a row




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intROductiOn

NetPro is committed to leveraging the power o Windows through intelligence and bestpractices both within and beyond our products. As the leading provider o solutions orWindows in rastructure management, we are strong believers in research to understand the

issues, needs and best practices o the Identity and Access Management (IDA) community.This knowledge enables us to build better products and we share it reely with thecommunity to contribute to the productivity and e ectiveness o its members.

This paper presents data gathered through a survey o attendees at NetPro’s tenth DirectoryExperts Con erence (DEC) held March 2 through 5 at the Hilton in Chicago, Illinois. The2008 con erence attracted 565 delegates representing 290 companies and arriving roma record 28 countries. This year, 280 participants, representing a good cross section oattendee demographics, completed the survey at a post-con erence website.

The intent o this survey is to gather in ormation that has value when shared with attendees,analysts, trade press and members o the IDA community. Collecting actual data andexperiences rom con erence attendees provides a wealth o in ormation on the issuesacing our community, the relative priority o those issues, current tool usage and commonpractices or directory and other network in rastructure management tasks. The 2008survey builds on the results o similar surveys conducted at DEC con erences since 2005and gives us the opportunity to examine trends and changes across our years. We plan tocontinue conducting these surveys at uture DEC events and welcome your comments andsuggestions or uture questions and areas or analysis.

This document summarizes the in ormation captured through the survey along with dataanalysis, trends and our insights on the implications o the ndings. We believe it providessolid data or comparisons with peer organizations and many ideas or organizationsto consider as they evaluate their IDA e orts and look or high value opportunities orimprovement and investment. We hope you nd the results as ascinating as we did!

AbOut dEc

Ge era i orma oSince its inception in 2002, DEC has been dedicated to advancing the skills o the mostexperienced users o Microso t Identity and Access (IDA) technologies. DEC emphasizes IDAtechnologies that IT pro essionals use and manage on a daily basis, and included tracks on:

n Directory Services, with speci c ocus on leveraging and optimizing Active Directory

n Identity Li ecycle Management, including all aspects o ILM, rom user provisioning tocross-plat orm management

n Federated Identity, highlighting ADFS and CardSpace

n In ormation Protection, with speci c emphasis on Windows RMS

2008 H gh gh sDEC 2008, the tenth event o its kind, continues to surge in popularity. The DEC 2008theme – Active Directory Evolves: The New Identity Plat orm or Enterprise 2.0 – exploredhow Windows directory and identity technologies support a rapidly changing distributedcomputing paradigm that’s mobile, ree rom boundaries, and virtualized.




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From pre-con erence workshops to cocktail receptions and birds o a eather sessions, DEC2008 o ered an exciting mix o un, educational and peer networking opportunities. Withover sixty sessions, participants enjoyed presentations, interactive discussions and thoughtprovoking commentary by a renowned group o IDA authorities including top-rated strategists

and speakers rom Microso t.

A sampling o the many popular speakers and topics rom the 2008 sessions include:

n Joe Long , Microso t’s General Manager o the Connected Identity and Directory team,opened the general con erence with a keynote presentation that discussed the current stateo identity ederation in the marketplace, the problems that identity ederation will solve inthe uture and how Microso t’s AD products will evolve to support those solutions.

n Gil Kirkpatrick , NetPro’s Chie Technical O cer, addressed the collision between applicationdevelopers and AD. Using AD as just another LDAP store, or worse, just another database,these developers o ten deliver sub-optimal results rom their e orts. He discussed how to:uncover these situation, understand what application developers are trying to accomplish,

and help educate them about the best ways to leverage AD.

n Wook Lee , Directory Service Architect at HP, presented how to “Raise Longhorn on theOutskirts o the Corporate Network.” This session shared lessons rom the many monthsHP has spent guring out what it takes to make “Longhorn” AD thrive as an essentialcomponent o its aggressive datacenter consolidation program.

n AD Federation Services (ADFS) Deep Dive – Presented by Microso t product management,this session discussed the basics o claims-based authorization, how the ederationprocess as de ned by WS-Federation actually works, the di erent kinds o authenticationthat ADFS supports, internal structure o ADFS, etc.

n Pamela Dingle , Consultant with Nulli Secundus presented recipes or setting up an Identity

Provider to create and validate corporately branded in ormation cards, and to enableconsuming applications both within and outside network perimeters to accept companyin ormation cards.

n Jeremy Palenchar , In rastructure Architect with Avanade, o ered delegates “10 ways toimprove the per ormance o your ILM system”. Based on results gathered rom projects atmultiple Fortune 100 companies and several government agencies, these recommendationscan improve the per ormance o most ILM implementations.

n Danny Kim , CTO o Full Armor, covered “Workfow Enabling the Datacenter,” a sessionwhich discussed how a large telecom implementation used Windows Workfow Foundation,Windows Communications Foundation, and Microso t PowerShell technologies together toprovision services or up to 80,000 servers utilizing virtualization technologies.

S r e demograph sThe DEC survey continues to attract strong response rom attendees, gathering 280 respondentsout o 565 overall attendees or a response rate o almost 50% in 2008. Previous surveysattracted 314 (2007), 235 (2006) and 101 (2005) respondents. Given the size and breadth oparticipation, we are con dent that the survey results constitute a representative sample oattending roles and organizations. The survey’s sample size is large enough to support a varietyo statistically valid breakdowns into subgroups. These groupings will enable readers to comparemore accurately their organizations and experiences with those o their peers.




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This section provides us with an understanding o the demographic make-up o the surveyparticipants in order to give context to the subsequent survey results.

Mos S r e Par pa s are te h a sn

Breakdown by Job Category

As expected given the mission o the DEC con erence, respondents are almost entirely“hands on” practitioners (consultants, administrators, system engineers, or technicianswithin the write-in portion o the “other” category). In 2008, technical practitionersaccounted or 91% o the survey respondents, up signi cantly rom 77% in 2007. Thisdi erence refects a drop in IT Manager, Director, and VP respondents as well as a declinein non-technical respondents within the “other” category.

tAblE 1: bREAkdOwn by JOb cAtEGORy

NA = Not Asked

n Architect was added as a demographic category in 2008. It was previously the mostpopular write-in entry in the “other” category. We suspect that in previous years thatattendees who considered themselves architects distributed themselves between theSystems Engineer, Consultant, ‘other” and possibly even the IT Manager categories. Allthose categories saw a signi cant drop in 2008 with the addition o Architect option.

n The Architect category supplanted Systems Engineers as the most popular attendee

category at 34%, due in part to the actors described above.n Write-in respondents in the “Other” category were mostly developers, but included a

product manager, security architect, and security analyst.

A Major wor large corpora e or Go er me it Orga a o sn Breakdown by Organization Type

n DEC attracts a healthy mix o attendees rom IT organizations and companiesproviding so tware and services

2008 2007 2006 2005

Administrator 9% 7% 6% 10% Architect 34% NA NA N

Consultant 11% 19% 21% 18%

Systems Engineer 30% 40% 40% 46%

Systems or Business Analyst 5% 6% 6% 6%

IT Manager, Director, VP 8% 16% 11% 14%

Other 4% 11% 11% 7%

Industry Analyst/Trade Press <1% 1% NA NA

Blank 0% 0% 4% 0%




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o 211 (just over 75%) o respondents are members o either a corporate (66%) orgovernment (9%) IT organization

o Non-IT respondents include Consultants (12.9%), Service Providers (7.5%) andSo tware Providers (4.3%)

n To provide a more accurate picture o best practices and technology usage patterns,where appropriate, this analysis will break out government and commercial ITorganizations separately. Each analysis will note whether it re ers to overall surveyresponses or speci cally to IT responses.

n IT Organization Size

n Corporate and government IT respondents are mostly rom large organizations. O ITrespondents designating the size o their IT organization (199 out o 211)

o 92% are rom IT organizations with over 100 employees

o A remarkable 75% work or very large IT organizations with over 1000 employees

dEc A e ees S ppor large n m ers o usersLarge IT organization size also means large numbers o users to support, with 59% o surveyrespondents working in organizations that support over 20,000 users. Survey respondentsrom vendor organizations also tended to support many users, with a similar percentage (55%)supporting over 20,000 users. However, a higher percentage o vendor respondents supportedsmaller user bases. This distribution highlights the di erence between vendor personnel(consultants and managed services support teams) who serve customers in large scale ITorganizations and those who provide support within their own companies.

tAblE 2: nuMbER O uSERS SuPPORtEd

Mos Respo e s Ha e M p e Respo s esn Technical Responsibilities

The table below provides a breakdown o IT organization attendees by areas o technicalresponsibility. As expected rom the name o the con erence, the majority o attendees haveresponsibility or AD. However, the mix o responsibilities has evolved as the con erence hasbroadened its mission to incorporate all Microso t IDA technologies. This trend is highlightedby the growth in the percentage o respondents who have responsibility or MIIS/ILM.

uSERS SuPPORtEd it vEndOR

Over 20,000 users 59% 55%

5,000 to 20,000 users 25% 9%

1,000 to 5,000 users 12% 11%

500 to 1,000 users 1% 5%

100 to 500 users 0% 7%

Less than 100 users 3% 13%




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Survey respondents could speci y multiple areas o responsibility. O those listing theirresponsibilities, 52% support at least three o the listed technologies, only 18% support asingle technology and 3% support all 7 listed technologies.

tAblE 3: tEcHnOlOGy RESPOnSibilitiES

n Organizational Responsibilities

The 2008 survey urther re ned the split between technology and organizationalresponsibilities started in the 2007 survey. Operations (68%) and Administration (67%)are the two most prevalent responsibilities or IT organizations, while Security (56%) and

Administration (52%) are the most prevalent or Vendor respondents. Again, respondentswere able to speci y multiple choices. O those listing their responsibilities, 52% supportat least three o the listed roles, and 27% support only one role. How these roles overlap isinteresting. O those IT respondents speci ying responsibility or User Support, 91% alsohave responsibility or Administration and 74% include Operations. Those listing Audit/ Compliance responsibilities (39% o the total) typically have additional Operations (78%),

Administration (81%) and Security (67%) responsibilities.

tAblE 4: ORGAnizAtiOnAl RESPOnSibilitiES

tEcHnOlOGy 2008 2007 2006 2005

Active Directory 81% 72% 90% 96%

DNS 48% 43% 54% 59%

Exchange 27% 15% 19% 29%

MIIS/ILM 30% 40% 40% 46%

Sharepoint 5% 6% 6% 6%

Non-Microso t Plat orms 8% 16% 11% 14%

Entire Network 4% 11% 11% 7%

Other <1% 1% NA N

ORGAnizAtiOnAl ROlE it vEndOR

Operations 68% 44%

Administration 67% 52%

User Support 31% 21%

So tware Development 17% 40%

Audit/Compliance 39% 35%

Security 57% 56%

Other 13% 13%






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H gh gh sn “Manageable” was the most common answer or virtually all areas or both IT and vendor

respondents, indicating considerable room or improvement

o

For IT respondents, server con guration was the only area where the percentageo respondents rating their organization’s situation as “Handling Well” exceeded“Manageable”

o Vendor respondents had no areas where “Handling Well” exceeded “Manageable”

n Fortunately, only 5% or ewer organizations are “Out o Control” in any area, but each areahad respondents in this category

n Many actors a ect the rating o a given area including its e ort requirements, level o risk,tediousness and time pressures. The quality o available automation is also statisticallysigni cant. Areas supported by mature tools, such as Back up / Archiving are deemedless challenging than areas such as Compliance Reporting, where available automation is

viewed as weak. The automation section o this report examines the quality o availableautomation o each o the eleven listed areas.

user pro s o g / e-pro s o g, e ega g a m s ra e r gh s, a omp a erepor g are he hree mos pro ema areas or itThe top issues were ranked by adding the percentage o respondents rating a given areaas either “Out o Control” or “Problematic.” Not surprising, as shown in table 5, the mostadministratively tedious and cumbersome areas rose to the top.

tAblE 5: tHE MOSt cHAllEnGinG AREAS

tOP iSSuES (it) nEGAtivE

1 User provisioning / de-provisioning 35%

2 Delegating aministrative rights 29%

3 Compliance reporting 27%

4 Disaster recovery 23%

5 Password management 19%

6 Security con guration 18%

7 GPO administration 16%

8 Diagnostic and repair 13%

9 Server con guration 12%

10 Data recovery 11%

11 Back up / archiving 8%

tOP iSSuES (vEndORS) nEGAtivE




4 Delegating administrative rights 17%





9 Data recovery 10%






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n User provisioning / de-provisioning easily captured rst place among IT respondents withover 1/3 rating this area problematic at minimum. A tedious area subject to high volumeso requests, 5% o respondents rated it as “Out o Control” in their organizations, and only28% rated it as “Handled Well” or a “Non-Issue.”

n Delegating administrative rights is an area raught with potential security and compliancerisks and it presents a challenge to 29% o the responding IT organizations.

n Compliance reporting is an increasingly time-consuming overhead area that drawsresources away rom more bene cial IDA tasks. It takes third place as a challenge, with a27% rating, but last place in areas rated “Handled Well” or a “Non-Issue.” It also receivesthe lowest rating or quality o available automation.

n Disaster Recovery is a surprise 4th place challenge - Given the impact and level o publicitygenerated by natural and geopolitical disasters in recent years, one would expect mostorganizations to have strong plans, processes and tools to handle Disaster Recovery. Yetonly 1/3 o survey respondents rate their organizations highly in this area and 23% consider

the area problematic.

comp a e repor g s he m er o e ss e or he e or ommOverall, the vendor community rates their challenges similarly to those o IT respondents.Nevertheless, some interesting di erences exist:

n Customer demands or compliance reports clearly impact consulting rms and serviceproviders, earning compliance reporting the number 1 spot on the vendor issue list with a30% negative response.

n User provisioning / de-provisioning takes 2nd place, receiving problematic ratings rom20% o the vendor respondents.

n

Relying more heavily on automation to support their operations, vendor respondent report alower percentage o problematic ratings across all 11 areas.

Pos e ra gs e ee ega e ra gs or mos areasWith the exception o the top three challenge areas or IT as noted above, positive ratings (thesum o “Handling Well” and “Non-Issue”) exceed negative ratings (the sum o “Out o Control”and “Problematic”). Among the vendors, positive ratings were higher in all areas except orcompliance reporting .

Ser er co g ra o s he eas ha e g g area or it orga a o sMost IT respondents (51%) believe they have server con guration solidly under control, ollowedby back up / archiving (45%) and data recovery (43%). Interestingly, although placed 2nd byvendor respondents, only 39% rated server con guration positively.




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tAblE 6: tHE lEASt cHAllEnGinG AREAS

ii. Jo Sa s a oJob satis action was added to the survey or the rst time in 2007 with the goal o discoveringi DEC attendees are truly working at jobs they love. This year’s survey data provides theopportunity to trend changes rom last year. As in 2007, respondents were not shy about theirlikes, dislikes and ideas or improving their jobs!

Jo sa s a o emograph sIn this analysis, we examined overall job satis action,but we also looked it at by various demographicbreakdowns. These breakdowns include organization/ company type, organization size, respondent title,(discussed in the previous section o this white paper)and years o job experience, which was captured inthis section o the survey. As the chart demonstrates,the average experience o DEC respondents declinedslightly rom 2007. However, with almost 70% havinggreater than 5 years o in rastructure support experience,it remains a highly experienced group.

O era jo sa s a o e e s gh rom 2007IDA pro essionals continue to have high jobsatis action with 70% saying they are satis ed or verysatis ed with their jobs. However, perhaps due topressures rom the declining economy, they are notquite as satis ed as in 2007. On a weighted basis,

job satis action dropped rom 4.03 in 2007 to 3.88 in2008. This change refects a signi cant drop in “verysatis ed” responses and an 8% increase in ‘average”and below responses. Very dissatis ed respondents

jumped rom 1% to 3% in 2008.

SOlid PER ORMAncE (it) POSitivE



3 Data recovery 43%









SOlid PER ORMAncE (vEndORS) POSitivE





5 Data recovery 38%










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who are he happ es dEc A e ees?When it comes to job satis action, the type o company, level o job experience and speci c jobresponsibilities all matter. So i you want to improve your job satis action consider the ollowingndings:

n Type o organization – For the second year in a row, the happiest respondents work or aso tware vendor. In 2008, 92% report they are satis ed or highly satis ed, up rom 85% in2007. In both years, 0% o respondents rated their satis action below average.

n Job experience – Con dence in your abilities and years o real li e experience relieve a loto stress, leading to higher satis action levels among more experienced respondents or thesecond year in a row.

n Responsibilities – The challenge o guring out and implementing user needs is rewarding– systems/business analysts report a 85% level o satis action taking rst place by job titleand improving rom an already high 81% in 2007

who are he eas happ dEc A e ees?While the majority o consultants are still satis ed with their jobs, as a group they moved to lastplace in overall satis action in 2008, a signi cant drop rom second place in 2007. Given thedirect impact o economic pressures on billing rates and job security in the consulting industry,the drop in job satis action is not surprising.

n Type o organization – Long hours and too much travel drove down satis action levelsamong consulting company respondents to 58%, down rom 68% in 2007.

n Job experience – Breaking into in rastructure management can be tough given workloadsand a sti learning curve. This year, respondents with 1 to 2 years o experience were theleast satis ed. On the plus side, 62% have above average job satis action, but 12% reportbelow average satis action.

n Responsibilities – By job title, consultants dropped rom 78% satis action in 2007 to 57% in2008, with 11% expressing negative levels o satis action.

Sa s a o pe o orga a oNo matter where they work, the majority o survey respondents are satis ed with their jobs. Onthe negative side, Corporate and Government IT organizations tied with 4% dissatis ed and 4%highly dissatis ed employees in 2008.




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Sa s a o jo e per e eIn 2007, job satis action was linear based on years oexperience. In 2008, this tendency is still apparentwith the exception o a surge in satis action among

employees with “less than 1 year” o experience.The “5 to 10 years” category had the highest overalllevel o satis action (77%), but it also had the highestpercentage o dissatis ed respondents (15%).Employees in the “1 to 2 years” group had the secondhighest level o dissatis action (12%) as well as thelowest overall satis action rate (62%).

Sa s a o jo eComparing 2007 and 2008 highlights the drop in jobsatis action among respondents who identi y themselves

as consultant. Note that the architect job title was justadded in 2008. As 11% and 30% o the respondentpool respectively, the drop in consultant and systemsengineer satis action levels was su cient to pull downgains in other categories. Most importantly, the ITmanager, director, VP category improved rom 69%satis action and next to last place in 2007 to 76%satis action in 2008.

Mos idA pro ess o a s or e ee 40 a 50 ho rs per eeExcessive hours is a common complaint among IDA pro essionals. To explore this issue, the

2008 survey included a new question on work hours. As shown in table 7, almost 2/3 o theIDA pro essionals responding to the survey work an average o 40 to 50 hours per week. Whenweighted and averaged across all respondents, the “typical” IDA pro essional works 46.7 hoursper week. Despite war stories to the contrary, very ew respondents consistently work over 60hours per week.

tAblE 7: diStRibutiOn by AvERAGE wORk HOuRS

HOuRS wORkEd PER wEEk PERcEntAGE

35 to 40 13%

40 to 50 64%

50 to 60 19%

60 to 80 3%

Over 80 hours <1%




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A m s ra ors or he o ges ho rsWhen analyzed by title using weighted averages, administrators work the longest hours,providing an extra 8 hours per week to their employers. Consultants ollow closely behind tocapture 2nd place.

tAblE 8: AvERAGE HOuRS by titlE

co s g rm emp o ees or he o ges ho rs orga a o peWhen analyzed by organization type, the least happy and the most happy organizations workthe longest hours. As expected, consulting rm employees, as expected, work the longesthours, but so tware vendor employees ollow closely behind. Despite stereotypes to thecontrary, Government IT employees work slightly longer hours than do their private sectorcounterparts.

tAblE 9: AvERAGE HOuRS by ORGAnizAtiOn tyPE

Shor er or ho rs o ’ a a s ra s a e o grea er jo sa s a oWhile popular wisdom equates long hours with decreased job satis action, this observationdoes not bear out in the survey data. IDA pro essionals may requently complain abouthours and workload, but respondents working the shortest hours had the highest levels odissatis action. Ironically, no individual working over 60 hours per week ell below averagein job satis action. These ndings show that while work hours are perceptually important torespondents, they are outweighed by other actors, such as travel and work environment whenassessing satis action.

titlE wEiGHtEd HOuRS

Administrator 48.0

Consultant 47.7

IT Manager, Director, VP 47.1

Architect 47.1

Systems or Business Analyst 46.8

Systems Engineer 46.0

Other 43.5

cAtEGORy wEiGHtEd HOuRS

Consulting Firm 48.2

So tware Vendor 47.7

Government IT 47.0

Corporate IT 46.7

Service Provider 44.4




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Note: the 80+ hour category was omitted from this chart due to its small sample size

Respo e s o e ear g e e h o og es, so g pro ems a or g h o hersSurvey respondents are inquisitive and highly dedicated individuals who have a passion ortechnology and want to make a di erence in their organizations. The ability to continuouslylearn and work with new technologies was by ar the most popular answer to an open-endedquestion about the best aspects o their jobs. Solving tough problems took second place,ollowed closely by working with others (teammates and users) in third place. The range oresponses was enormous, but other positive job aspects include:

n Ability to work on many varied assignments

n Flexibility in schedule and assignments

n Freedom / empowerment to do what is needed

n Encountering and handling new challenges on a regular basis

n Level o responsibility and impact on their company’s operations

n Regular use o creative skills to solve problems and apply technology in new ways

n Contributing to their company/organization’s success

wor oa / or ho rs op he s o he ors aspe s o he joRespondents weren’t shy about listing the worst aspects o their jobs. Issues run the gamutrom complaints about clueless management to overly repetitive tasks, job stress and workingwith incompetent outsourcers. On a percentage basis, workload/work hours complaints topped

the list, accounting or over 20% o the comments. Politics remains a common annoyance,taking 2nd place in mentions, down rom 1st place in 2007. Other requently mentioned issuesinclude:

n Not enough people resources

n Incompetent coworkers

n Insu cient automation




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n Ine ective processes and standards

n Excessive travel

n Lack o decisions and/or clear direction rom managers

n Time spent on “administrivia” and other overhead tasks

Ge g e er oo s a a oma o ops respo e s’ sh s or he 2 ear a roRespondents are surprisingly pragmatic in their improvement ideas. This year’s list was toppedby suggestions or reducing workload. Getting better tools and automation topped the wishlist in both 2007 and 2008. However, hiring/adding more people resources supplanted 2007’shigher pay in second place. Getting better direction rom management tied with higher pay asthe 3rd most common improvement theme. Other requently mentioned improvements include:

n Improving processes to increase e ciency

n Establishing stronger control over architectures and technical environment

n Enhance teamwork across organizations

n Reduce internal politics

n Additional/better training

iii. cuRREnt PRActicES

Respo e s are sp o he e e e ess o he r orga a o ’s e a a essma ageme per orma eIdentity and access management practices are still evolving in many organizations. Comparedto the directory management practices queried in previous surveys, ewer companies consider

themselves above average in per ormance in identity and access management and only 6% orespondents consider their organizational per ormance as “world class.” In contrast, 40% orespondents rated their organizational per ormance as “novices” or “less e ective than we wish.”

n 35% consider themselves either “world class” (6%) or “better than average” (29%)

n 25% rate their per ormance as “adequate”

n 29% consider themselves as “less e ective than we wish”

n 11% consider themselves “novices”

Mos it orga a o s ha o o orma ras r re ma ageme pro esses o s erhem o e o er rea raLess than 50% o IT respondent report that they ollow ormal system support processes. Othe 47% using ormal processes, 21% consider those processes ormal and e ective, while26% consider them overly bureaucratic. Many IT organizations (42%) report their processesas alling in between ormal and in ormal. Only 12% report ollowing in ormal processes and3% rate those processes as tending towards chaotic. Fewer vendor respondents ollow ormalprocesses (32%), but only 11% consider those processes overly bureaucratic.




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S hema e e s o s are s a o ro e hro gh orma pro essesThe majority o IT organizations (57%) ollow ormal processes or handing schema extensions,with 17% using processes that all between ormal and in ormal and 16% using in ormalprocesses. The need to control schema extensions appears well understood, only 12%

consider their processes overly bureaucratic, merely 2% are in ormal tending to chaotic, and10% do not allow any schema extensions.

Ro e- ase e ega o sho pass he 50% a op o mar 2008Overall, 47% o respondents are currently using role-based delegation in their organizationswith adoption reaching 50% among vendor respondents. Another 15% o respondents plan toimplement role-based delegation in 2008. Among IT respondents, 29% are still considering, butonly 10% have no plans to implement. Fewer vendor respondents (13%) are still consideringand 21% have no plans to implement role-based delegation.

tAblE 10 – tHE AdOPtiOn O ROlE-bASEd dElEGAtiOn

Ro e- ase a ess o ro a op o ags s gh eh ro e- ase e ega oSurvey respondents report very similar usage patterns or role-based access control as or role-based delegation, however, current overall adoption stands at 44%. The adoption di erenceshould vanish in 2008, as 18% o respondents plan to implement the technology over the next 6to 12 months.

i e e era o rema s a ee g e ge pra e, a op o s s o gro gUsage o identity ederation has grown rom 4% o respondents in 2007 to 12% in 2008.

Another 18% o respondents plan to implement identity ederation over the next 6 to 12 months.IT organizations still considering ederation dropped rom 48% in 2007 to 37% in 2008. Thepercentage o organizations with no plans to implement ederation remains steady at about 32%or both years.

co e - ase r gh s ma ageme s s ear a op oContents-based rights management has limited traction among respondents, with only 17%reporting its use within their organizations. Pending adoption is light with only 13% o ITorganizations and 8% o vendor respondents planning implementations within the next 6 to 12months. O the remaining respondents, 37% are still considering and 33% have no plans toimplement.

v r a re or es are se ess ha 50% o respo e sThe adoption o virtual directories appears to be heading to a plateau around the 50% mark.Current adoption rates stand at 42% or IT organizations and 48% or the vendor respondents;however, ewer than 10% o respondents have plans to implement the technology in the next

ROlE-bASEd dElEGAtiOn 2008 2007

Yes, already using 47% 42%

Yes, within 6 months 5% 5%

Yes, within 12 months 10% 10%

Still considering 26% 27%

No, don’t plan to use 13% 15%




I i . i l i i . 17

6 to 12 months. About 25% o IT organizations are still considering adoption sometime in theuture, while 24% have no plans or adoption.

O 17% o respo e s ha e a oma e pro s o g

It is not surprising that provisioning / de-provisioning tops the list o challenges described earlierin this report due to the low level o success ul automation. The majority o IT organizationsuse either manual procedures (8%) or a mixture o manual and automated approaches (45%).

Another 14% are in the process o automating and 12% use automation, but are not satis edwith the results. Full automation is more prevalent among vendor respondents at 25% with anadditional 13% o respondents using automation, but not satis ed with the results.

iv. tEcHnicAl EnviROnMEntS

O er 90% o respo g orga a o s se aeas o e ma ageme rame orManagement rameworks are a necessityrather than a “nice to have” or running today’scomplex technology environments. Over90% o survey respondents indicated thatorganizations used one (52%) or more (39%)o the management rameworks on the market.

A ew respondents (0.4%) reported using vedi erent rameworks within their organization!

M roso Opera o s Ma ager (MOM) she rs p a e rame or , se 55% orespo e sMicroso t Operations Manager (MOM) garners ahealthy 55% share o DEC survey respondents,showing solid growth over 2007 (41%) and2006 (32%) gures or ull deployment. MOMis solidly the rst place ramework, exceedingsecond place nisher HP OpenView by a ratioo 2 to 1. CA Unicenter took last place amongthe major rameworks with a surprisingly weakshowing o only 5%.

E ha ge sage rea hes 87% A ter remaining steady at 74% in both the 2006 and 2007 surveys, Exchange usage jumped to87% among the 2008 respondents. Respondents are also moving steadily to Exchange 2007,which is already in use at 21% o responding organizations (IT and Vendor) and deployment is inprogress at another 19% o responding organizations.

n Vendor organizations are the early adopters o Exchange 2007, with 41% already using thisversion versus 15% o IT respondents




I i . i l i i . 18

n In contrast to the early adopter pace o the vendor community, IT organization adoptionplans grow over the next year with 5% planning to deploy in 3 months, 8% in 6 months and20% in 12 months

n

O the respondents using Exchange, 17% o IT organizations and 14% o vendororganizations have no current plans to migrate to Exchange 2007

MiiS/ilM a op o s esse a fa Although somewhat skewed by the addition o the MIIS track at DEC, the percentage oorganizations relying on MIIS/ILM is e ectively the same as 2007. These results suggest thatMIIS/ILM has reached a plateau a ter 3 years o steady growth.

tAblE 11: MiiS/ilM AdOPtiOn

* 2007 “Using” includes “deployment in progress”

ilM “2” s a ra g ear a op ersILM “2”, the code name or the successor to ILM 2007, has sparked interest among current andplanned MIIS/ILM users. Microso t unveiled the rst public beta at TechEd 2008, and 13% o ITrespondents and 25% o vendor respondents plan to participate in the beta program.

n About 3% o respondents plan to implement ILM “2” upon general release, but are notparticipating in the beta program

n Another 9% o respondents plan to implement ILM “2” within 12 months o general release

n 17% (IT) and 19% (vendor) o respondents plan to wait until general availability be oreevaluating ILM “2”

n

Finally, 29% o respondents are still considering their ILM “2” strategy

Ad e era e Ser es has ap re a o 50% o he ear mar eThe use o AD Federated Services (ADFS) is hostage to the overall adoption rate or identityederation. Currently, only 2% o survey respondents report using ADFS, and another 5% reportthat deployment is in progress. Given the 12% reported adoption o identity management in2008, Microso t appears to have captured about 50% o the current market. An additional10% o respondents plan to deploy ADFS over the next 12 months, corresponding to the18% planning to adopt identity management over that same period. About 38% o overallrespondents are still considering ADSF and 45% have no plans to deploy it.

MiiS AdOPtiOn 2008 2007 2006 2005

Yes, already using 48% 50% 43% 31%

Yes, within 3 months 2% 2% 5% 6%



Still considering 18% 17% 19% 27%

No, don’t plan to use 28% 24% 26% 28%




I i . i l i i . 19

R gh s Ma ageme Ser es s se o 2% o respo e sRights Management Services (RMS) is in a very similar position to ADFS in its own marketsegment. Only 2% o survey respondents report using RMS, and an additional 4% report thatdeployment is in progress. RMS’s topic area, content-based rights management, has a 17%

adoption rate among attendees, with pending adoption at only 13% over the next 12 months.Thus, RMS has approximately a 1/3 share o the current market, but will get some growth romthe 7% o respondents who plan to implement it over the next 12 months. About 38% o overallrespondents are still considering RMS and 49% have no plans to deploy it.

SharePo o es o ma e rap ga s a op oSharePoint continues to be a major success or Microso t, reaching 74% adoption in 2008.While some market growth will continue over the next ew years, the survey data showssigns o a slowdown. Pending implementations dropped rom 12% in 2007 to 6% in 2008,while the number o organizations not planning to implement SharePoint remained stableat 11%. The pool o potential uture adopters is also shrinking, as the pool o organizationsconsidering adoption dropped rom 12% to 9%. Judging rom responses in the open-endedusage question, the extent and diversity o SharePoint use within companies is expanding.

Respondents use it or document management, intranets and or many orms o collaborationand in ormation sharing.

tAblE 12: SHAREPOint AdOPtiOn

Po erShe sage s gro g h it, fa h he e or ommWindows PowerShell, Microso t’s admin-ocused command line shell and scriptinglanguage has grown signi cantly within IT asorganizations in the evaluation stage in 2007

moved to usage in 2008. In contrast, usagein the vendor community is essentially thesame or both years. O particular interest,the percentage o respondents not using orevaluating PowerShell has remained stableor both IT and vendors, indicating thatuture growth will come rom the evaluators

rather than non-users changing their minds. Although vendor usage is fat, it still leads IT. However, PowerShell will likely not see signi cantnew growth in the vendor community until usage within their IT market increases.

SHAREPOint AdOPtiOn 2008 2007 2006

Yes, already using 74% 66% 57%

Yes, within 3 months 1% 3% 2%



Still considering 9% 12% 12%

No, don’t plan to use 11% 11% 26%




I i . i l i i . 20

g a a a e e ee a - o- a or a m gra o e or s s he op w o sSer er m gra o ha e geTechnology advances, changing business needs and security concerns orce in rastructuresupport teams to per orm technology migrations on a regular basis, drawing resources away

rom other assignments. Finding the time and resources to per orm technology migrations whilestill meeting the demands o day-to-day support is the highest ranked challenge by IT surveyrespondents.

tAblE 13: MiGRAtiOn cHAllEnGES

Survey respondents could check as many challenges as applied in their organizations, allowingus to analyze the overall level o concern on a percentage basis. Over the our years o thissurvey, we have seen a steady decline in the percentage o respondents expressing challengesor migrations, an indicator o improvements in migration tools and practices.

Mos orga a o s ep o m p eser er opera g s s emsMost organizations o cially supportmore than one server operatingsystem (OS). The median number osupported server OSs is 3, with 29%o organizations supporting only 1 and2% supporting all seven listed systems.Microso t Windows Server is by ar thedominant OS, supported by 100% othe IT respondents and 95% o vendorrespondents.

windOwS SERvER 2008 MiGRAtiOn cHAllEnGES

Balancing between day-to-day supportand migration e ort 54%

Controlling / documenting changes 27%

Preventing service level degradation 23%

Finding / developing skilled technical resources 22%

Maintaining security 16%

Other 13%




I i . i l i i . 21

M roso w o s om a es he es opIn contrast to server OSs, 52% o respondingorganizations support only one client OS– Microso t Windows. O the remaining

respondents, 25% o cially support two clientOSs, 16% support three and 7% support 4.Windows is used by 100% o IT respondents and98% o vendor respondents. All types o Linuxcombined capture only 29% and Apple takes 3rdplace at 26%.

v. AutOMAtEd tOOlS

J s o er 30% o it orga a o s o s er he r ras r re ma ageme e or s o ee -a oma e

Automation is making inroads into the IT in rastructure management community, but mostorganizations remain only partially automated. O the IT organizations that consider themselvesto be well-automated, most rely on native tools and scripts or their automation. Despite theavailability o many in rastructure management tools and solutions on the market, only 11%o responding IT organizations use enough third-party tools to consider themselves well-automated. Not surprisingly, the vendor community is more highly automated than IT (51%versus 31%), with in rastructure service providers accounting or most o the well-automatedresponses. Vendor adoption o third-party tools or automation grew by 50% rom 2007 to2008, while IT usage dropped slightly.

tAblE 14: PREvAlEncE O AutOMAtiOn

Respo e s are er he me he q a o a a a e a oma o or mos oo a egor esRespondents were asked to rate the quality o available automation or the eleven areasassessed in the Challenges section o this report using a our-part scale (Poor, Fair, Good,Excellent). The table below compiles the results by area and compares tool quality or eacharea by the percentage o negative ratings (Poor and Fair) and positive ratings (Good andExcellent). The results are stack ranked by subtracting the percentage o negative ratings rom

it vEndORS

Ho o o es r e o r orga a o ’s se o a oma o 2008 2007 2008 2007 or he s s ems ha o are respo s e or?

Well automated using third-party tools 11% 12% 22% 14%

Well automated using native tools and scripts 20% 14% 29% 21%

Partially automated 50% 56% 33% 39%

Lacks necessary automation 12% 12% 3% 6%

Primarily manual 4% 5% 8% 13%

Other 2% 2% 5% 7%




I i . i l i i . 22

the percentage o positive ratings. The table shows the results across all respondents. ITrespondents tended to mark slightly lower than vendor respondents.

tAblE 15: QuAlity O AvAilAblE AutOMAtiOn OPtiOnS

ke o ser a o s:n All tool categories have high percentages o negative ratings. Even the best category, Back

up / Archiving , has a 46% negative rating.n Only two categories, Back up / Archiving and Server Con guration have net positive

ratings, and ratings drop quickly as one descends through the table.

n Respondent ratings or the quality o available automation by area have a strong positivestatistical correlation with their level o challenge rating or those areas. In other words,respondents happy with the quality o available automation were much less likely to viewthat area as a challenge than those who were unhappy with the automation (and vice versa).

n In some cases, such as Diagnostic and Repair , respondent experience in the underlyingtask helps them overcome the perceived limitations o available tools.

tOOl cAtEGORy nEGAtivE POSitivE nEt

Back up / archiving 46% 54% 8%

Server con guration 48% 52% 4%

Data recovery 51% 49% -2%

Password management 53% 47% -6%

GPO administration 54% 46% -8%

User provisioning / de-provisioning 55% 45% -10%

Disaster recovery 56% 44% -12%

Security con guration 58% 42% -16%

Diagnostic and repair 64% 36% -28%

Delegating administrative rights 64% 36% -28%

Compliance reporting 69% 31% -38%



ab n pi o m z w 1991, n p m b

M m it b . f ma d e s p s m , n p

w M - k ’ m .

n p u.s. h q4747 N. 22nd St., Suite 400Phoenix, AZ 850161.800.998.5090 | [email protected] | www.netpro.com


MOM/ScOM ops he s o oo s ha mpro e he es o idA pro ess o a s As the nal question in the survey, respondents were asked to list the top three systemmanagement tools that make their lives easier. As expected, this question generated anenormous list o tools that ran the gamut rom simple homegrown scripts to major Microso t

product o erings. Many tools listed garnered only one or two mentions, but a hand ul o clearwinners emerged. The top tools were well ahead o their peers in mentions. They are:

1st place: Microso t System Center Operations Manager (SCOM), ormerly MOM

2nd place: Microso t System Center Con guration Manager (SCCM), ormerly SMS

3rd place: NetPro ChangeAuditor

The next tier o tools includes:

4th place: Microso t Identity Li ecycle Manager (ILM), ormerly MIIS

5th place: (Tied)

n NetPro RestoreAdmin

n Microso t PowerShell

n Microso t VB Scripts

n Microso t Group Policy Management Console

A ter these tools, the number o individual mentions drops o quickly. None o the manyremaining tools listed received more than seven mentions.

In total, Microso t o erings received the most mentions, but given the size o their tool port olio,the mentions were spread across many native tools and individual products. Although wellbehind Microso t in total mentions, NetPro was solidly in second place with its productsgarnering almost three times as many mentions as third place Quest.

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