Quest Experts

We (Quest Software) recently published a web page with a list and description of our "experts". Very useful information for me because even in a 3,000 person organization you don't get to meet everyone plus we are a global organization and expertise exists in more places than the United States after all.

In the Microsoft area there are nine chaps featured on the page. Check them out. Their expertise crosses Active Directory, Exchange, PowerShell, SharePoint and Identity Management. In fact, a couple of them are MVPs (Microsoft Value Professionals).

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Quest Software

Do you have an Identity management disaster plan?

I'm sure some folks will disagree with me here but I think there is a difference between a business continuity disaster plan and an identity management disaster plan. Most companies, I hope, have a business continuity disaster plan which basically documents what needs to get done if a server room is flooded, the mainframe catches on fire or the really bad scenarios of buildings or locales being "destroyed".

However, how do you handle the situation of your primary authentication directory "blowing up"? New hardware and restore the latest backup? What about the new identities that were created between the last backup and the incident? Just lost? Sorry, you can't pay your credit card bill?

I know of a bank which moves millions of dollars a day based on a Linux system that authenticates to Active Directory. What happens if AD is not available for 5 minutes? What then?

Let's even go further down the food chain. Your AD (or name your favorite directory) administrator decides to leave on a Friday and deletes or changes a bunch of information. What do you do? Do you restore from the last backup? What about all the changes? What if the admin accidentally deletes an OU? What about any changes that occured between the last backup and the incident?

I would posit that you need near continuous backup for your identity and authentication repositories. If you aren't there yet you really need to be thinking about it...

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identity management, compliance

InTrust for Active Directory is Microsoft certified

InTrust for Active Directory has been certified by Veritest for Windows Server 2003 Standard and Enterprise edition! The certification statements have finally been posted by Veritest. That's a total of 13 Quest products that are now Veritest certified for Windows Server 2003 - and there are more on the way - including preliminary Windows Server 2008 certifications!




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Quest Software, Microsoft, Active Directory

We have a position open...

If you or anyone you know is interested as clearly those that read this blog would be awesome candidates...

The job description can be found here. Summary below...

We are currently seeking to identify a P&L minded Product Manager to manage the strategic direction of the InTrust product line to ensure a competitive market advantage and champions the development of new solutions to meet emerging market opportunities consistent with the organization's short- and long-term goals and objectives.

RESPONSIBILITIES:

• Participate as a proactive member of the Quest Product Management team and contributes to the company by meeting short- and long-term revenue results for the InTrust security platform-centric product line;
• Take accountability and resolve issues preventing the achievement of timely, quality, and cost effective results;
• Take strategic risks toward achieving operational excellence;
• Create and maintain an accurate and up-to-date executive overview of product(s) including market, financial, and strategic data analysis to ensure effective
  communications of goals, key issues, and progress towards objectives;
• Develop accurate and timely Market Requirements Documents (MRDs) that
  contain feature functionality descriptions to be used by development team and
  Business Requirements Documents (BRDs) to assess the validity of proposed new features or new product offerings;
• Conduct market analysis to determine product relevancy and adjust course as needed;
• Influence industry Analysts to maximize market position and share;
• Understand the competitive landscape and provide direction accordingly. This includes exploring strategic acquisition opportunities as well as analyzing build/buy options;
• Provide necessary content to Product Marketing team to ensure effective product collateral materials to support short- and long-term revenue objectives;
• Work effectively, cross-functionally, with Development, Support, Marketing,
  etc. to ensure the efficient operation of product development and release;
• Work with management to set revenue forecasts.
  

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Quest Software