2006 Experts Conference Survey White Paper
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NetPro 2006 Directory Experts Conference
Attendee Survey Results Highlights and Analysis
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 makes no warranties express or implied, in this document. NetPro Computing, NetPro, and the NetPro logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of NetPro Computing, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, Active Directory, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. NetPro Computing, Inc. • 4747 N 22nd Street, Suite 400 • Phoenix, AZ 85016-4774• USA DEC-WP-0806-2006
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
Table of Contents
Executive Overview ............................................................................................1 Introduction .........................................................................................................3 About DEC ...........................................................................................................4 Survey Demographics ........................................................................................6 Highlights and Analysis .....................................................................................8 I. Issues and Priorities ......................................................................................8 II. Current Practices..........................................................................................9 III. Technical Environments ............................................................................14 IV. Directory Tool Preferences .......................................................................17
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
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] Internet: 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]
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 year’s 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 this survey
•
Survey respondents are primarily technicians, work within large corporate and governmental 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 for the 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, another 37% are in progress or plan to implement a solution within 24 months
•
44% of responding organizations rely on paper-based processes to handle directory change management and 15% make changes without any specific approval process
•
Most organizations (55%) consider themselves “world class” or “better than average” in their directory management performance
•
87% of responding organizations are using or are planning to use Service Level Agreements
•
AD Support and Network Availability are the two most common SLA attributes
•
Responding organizations have strong interest in ITIL; 55% of respondents are currently using ITIL and another 24% are considering its use
•
Change management is the most commonly implemented ITIL practice
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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•
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 infrastructure management tools
•
58% of responding organizations do not have a preferred AD tool vendor. NetPro is the 1st place choice among companies with a preference
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Attendee Survey Results Introduction The purpose of this paper is to share information gathered through a survey of attendees at NetPro’s 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 conference’s 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!
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 Enterprise Identity 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 HP’s Guido Grillenmeier and NetPro’s 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 Highlights DEC 2006, the ninth event of its kind, continues to surge in popularity, exceeding last year’s 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, Microsoft’s Director of Program Management, Directory Services, kicked off the event by providing a preview of Microsoft’s Identity and Access Management Strategy and Roadmap.
• John Enck, Research Vice President, Gartner spoke on the technical and market directions 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 and informative 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-Packard Consulting, 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 analyst’s view of MIIS in his talk “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 Burton’s processes.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 Microsoft’s 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 Microsoft’s Peter Houston, which featured well-known industry experts such as Dean Wells, Joe Richards, Stuart Kwan, Guido Grillenmeier and NetPro’s 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 All Night” 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 conference’s “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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 of participation, 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 o o o
•
Work within a large IT organization o o o
•
75% are self-described “hands on” practitioners (consultants, administrators, system engineers, or “other” technicians) Systems Engineers are the most popular category for the second year in a row, accounting for slightly over 40% of attendees Architects were the most popular write-in responsibility, accounting for 4% of overall respondents 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
63% are members of either a corporate (52%) or government (11%) IT organization Other categories included consultants (14%), Service Providers (5%) Software Providers (10%) and other/blank (7%) 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. Active Directory DNS Exchange MIIS Audit/Compliance Security Entire Network Other
2006 90% 54% 19% 39% 33% 45% 13% 14%
Table 1: Job Responsibilities
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2005 96% 59% 29% 24% 31% 54% 14% 9%
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Delving more deeply into survey respondent’s 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 o
responsibilities table 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 5,000 to 20,000 users 1,000 to 5,000 users 500 to 1,000 users 100 to 500 users Less than 100 users
•
55% 30% 8% 2% 3% 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.
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Highlights and Analysis I. Issues and Priorities Compliance and Security continue to gain in priority For 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% of respondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 2% rate it as lower priority
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Improving Windows security - 67% of respondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 1% rate it as lower priority
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Improving directory security - 63% of respondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 1% rate it as lower priority
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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 only 42% 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 their organizations, 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 achieve security 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 respondent’s company) – Example: the number of different agencies and regulations involved in achieving compliance
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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•
Operational concerns – Examples: how to incorporate AD into existing change management processes and setting up the human workflow for user rights approvals/denials (provisioning)
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Organizational politics – Example: getting management to limit the number of people in remote locations with the authority to make changes in access rights
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Technical – Example: security audit log collection and alerting
On a day-to-day basis, Auditing AD changes has supplanted Monitoring 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
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
2 1 4 * 6 3 * 5 7
Top AD Support Requirements Auditing AD changes Monitoring AD health AD disaster recovery Automated provisioning Implementing AD change management processes and tools Delegation of AD rights Access Control GPO change management Implementing AD troubleshooting tools
Relative Weight 54 47 36 33 32 28 24 21 10
* Not included in the 2005 Survey
II. Current Practices Most organizations consider themselves better than average when rating their overall directory management performance It’s 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”
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 Directory administration Directory troubleshooting Supporting AD users Enforcing security policies Planning and "get ahead" efforts Supporting corporate auditing/compliance efforts Creating and generating reports Monitoring/Tuning performance
% Supporting 100% 96% 96% 95% 95% 91% 89% 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 All 8 Functions 7 out of 8 Functions 6 out of 8 Functions 5 out of 8 Functions 4 out of 8 Functions
% Supporting 73% 13% 7% 7% 1%
Cumulative % 73% 86% 93% 99% 100%
For many respondents, supporting these AD functions is only part of their responsibilities As encompassing as they seem, these functions are only part of the responsibilities of many 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 Over 100% 75% to 100% 50% to 75% 25% to 50% Less than 25%
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% Respondents 21% 17% 17% 21% 24%
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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87% of responding organizations are using or are planning to use Service 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 respondents o 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 reporting that they use SLAs: o 69% have SLAs between IT and end users o 40% are between IT and an external network service provider o 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 categories o 22% have SLAs for all 3 categories
AD Support and Network Availability are the most common SLA attributes 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 AD support End-to-end response time for AD AD uptime Exchange support End-to-end response time for Exchange Exchange uptime Network availability
2006 65% 45% 60% 51% 29% 46% 63%
2005 73% 58% 70% 51% 41% 46% 72%
Surprisingly, relatively few organizations back SLA performance with penalties or incentives Only 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 IT’s 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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 ITIL o 22% of respondents are “strong believers in ITIL and have implemented throughout our organization” o 33% of respondents “use ITIL where appropriate” Of the remaining respondents o 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 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Release Management
Security & Policy Management
Configuration & Auditing
Service Management
Change Management
Over half of the respondents rely on informal and manual approaches for 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 with defined workflows and a review/approval process.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 selecting a 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... Auditing and reporting on identity and access Synchronization of identity information across your environm... Password management (password self service, password synchro... Management of roles Management of groups Providing additional self-service capabilities to end users Replacing a home-grown application a with supported product White pages Other
44% 34% 34% 29% 24% 23% 19% 7% 6% 1%
Microsoft has the largest share of the currently installed provisioning solutions • • • • •
43% -- Microsoft Identity Integration Server 26% -- Home-grown application 8% -- IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 6% -- Sun Java Identity Manager 5% -- Novell Identity Manager
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 in progress. Only four respondents (<2%) plan to deploy Exchange within the next twelve months and 3% are still considering. The remaining 21% have no plans to implement Exchange in their organizations. Approximately 19% of survey respondents are responsible for supporting Exchange in their organization.
MOM is reaching the tipping point in enterprise adoptions Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) is fast becoming the standard operations environment among responding organizations with usage at 49%. It has already been deployed by 32% of respondents and deployment is in progress for another 17%. Another 5% plan to deploy within the next twelve months and 16% are still considering. The final 31% have no plans to deploy MOM.
MIIS adoption has grown rapidly over the past year In 2005, 19% of the survey respondents were responsible for supporting MIIS in their organizations. In 2006, this number leapt to 39%! Organizational adoption has grown from 31% to 43% as last year’s deployments completed. Based on this progress and the number of companies in the planning cycle, NetPro predicts that in 2007 MIIS adoption should easily exceed 50%. MIIS Adoption Yes, already using Yes, within 3 months Yes, within 6 months Yes, within 12 months Still considering No, don't plan to use
2006 43% 5% 4% 3% 19% 26%
2005 31% 6% 1% 6% 27% 28%
When asked an open-ended question on how their organizations used MIIS, respondents provided a laundry list of applications. The most common uses include identity management, directory synchronization and provisioning. One honest respondent noted that his/her company used MIIS “nowhere near its capabilities!”
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Sharepoint has already made significant inroads in the enterprise market Sharepoint, Microsoft’s 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 responding organizations 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? 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% 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 to install Microsoft’s 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? 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% No plans yet
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More than 12 months after general release
Within 12 months of general release
As soon as it is generally available
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Federated Identity Management is still bleeding edge in the DEC community 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 year’s respondents plan to implement it within the next 12 months. Does your organization use Federated Services? 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% No
Still considering
Yes, within 12 Yes, within 6 months months
Yes, within 3 months
Yes, already using
Maintaining security during migration is the biggest challenge facing companies during technical migrations Operational issues such as maintaining security (1st place), balancing between day-today 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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 use some 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 respondent’s 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 1 2 3 4 5 6
Vendor Microsoft (all) NetPro NetIQ Homegrown Quest HP Openview
Mentions 39% 24% 15% 11% 6% 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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
2006 Rank
2005 Rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1 2 3 4 5 6 11 8 10 9 7 12 14 13
Factor
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Relative Weight
Quality of products (stable, bug free) Total cost of ownership Scalability Ability to integrate with other tools Quality of customer support Ease of use Breadth of product capabilities Best of breed capabilities Use and support of best practices Depth of coverage Dedication to exceeding your expectations in product quality... Meets commitments to you Community support (forums, eBooks, web site resources) Other
65 34 29 28 22 20 20 15 14 13 7 7 3 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 an additional 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, NetPro’s 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
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Attendee Survey Results Highlights and Analysis
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 makes no warranties express or implied, in this document. NetPro Computing, NetPro, and the NetPro logo are either registered trademarks or trademarks of NetPro Computing, Inc. in the United States and/or other countries. Microsoft, Active Directory, Windows NT, Windows 2000 and Windows Server 2003 are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation. Other product and company names mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners. NetPro Computing, Inc. • 4747 N 22nd Street, Suite 400 • Phoenix, AZ 85016-4774• USA DEC-WP-0806-2006
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
Table of Contents
Executive Overview ............................................................................................1 Introduction .........................................................................................................3 About DEC ...........................................................................................................4 Survey Demographics ........................................................................................6 Highlights and Analysis .....................................................................................8 I. Issues and Priorities ......................................................................................8 II. Current Practices..........................................................................................9 III. Technical Environments ............................................................................14 IV. Directory Tool Preferences .......................................................................17
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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] Internet: 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]
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 year’s 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
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235 attendees representing a good cross section of organizations responded to this survey
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Survey respondents are primarily technicians, work within large corporate and governmental 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 for the second year in a row
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Auditing AD changes is the most important day-to-day requirement
•
35% of responding organizations have a user provisioning solution in place, another 37% are in progress or plan to implement a solution within 24 months
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44% of responding organizations rely on paper-based processes to handle directory change management and 15% make changes without any specific approval process
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Most organizations (55%) consider themselves “world class” or “better than average” in their directory management performance
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87% of responding organizations are using or are planning to use Service Level Agreements
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AD Support and Network Availability are the two most common SLA attributes
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Responding organizations have strong interest in ITIL; 55% of respondents are currently using ITIL and another 24% are considering its use
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Change management is the most commonly implemented ITIL practice
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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•
MIIS deployment among DEC attendees has grown from 31% in 2005 to 43% in 2006
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Quality of products is the most important factor for selecting infrastructure management tools
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58% of responding organizations do not have a preferred AD tool vendor. NetPro is the 1st place choice among companies with a preference
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Attendee Survey Results Introduction The purpose of this paper is to share information gathered through a survey of attendees at NetPro’s 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 conference’s 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!
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 Enterprise Identity 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 HP’s Guido Grillenmeier and NetPro’s 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 Highlights DEC 2006, the ninth event of its kind, continues to surge in popularity, exceeding last year’s 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, Microsoft’s Director of Program Management, Directory Services, kicked off the event by providing a preview of Microsoft’s Identity and Access Management Strategy and Roadmap.
• John Enck, Research Vice President, Gartner spoke on the technical and market directions 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 and informative 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-Packard Consulting, 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 analyst’s view of MIIS in his talk “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 Burton’s processes.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 Microsoft’s 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 Microsoft’s Peter Houston, which featured well-known industry experts such as Dean Wells, Joe Richards, Stuart Kwan, Guido Grillenmeier and NetPro’s 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 All Night” 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 conference’s “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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 of participation, 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 o o o
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Work within a large IT organization o o o
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75% are self-described “hands on” practitioners (consultants, administrators, system engineers, or “other” technicians) Systems Engineers are the most popular category for the second year in a row, accounting for slightly over 40% of attendees Architects were the most popular write-in responsibility, accounting for 4% of overall respondents 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
63% are members of either a corporate (52%) or government (11%) IT organization Other categories included consultants (14%), Service Providers (5%) Software Providers (10%) and other/blank (7%) 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. Active Directory DNS Exchange MIIS Audit/Compliance Security Entire Network Other
2006 90% 54% 19% 39% 33% 45% 13% 14%
Table 1: Job Responsibilities
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2005 96% 59% 29% 24% 31% 54% 14% 9%
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Delving more deeply into survey respondent’s 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 o
responsibilities table 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 5,000 to 20,000 users 1,000 to 5,000 users 500 to 1,000 users 100 to 500 users Less than 100 users
•
55% 30% 8% 2% 3% 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.
Copyright © 2006 NetPro, Inc.
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Highlights and Analysis I. Issues and Priorities Compliance and Security continue to gain in priority For 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.
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Controlling and auditing changes for corporate compliance - 73% of respondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 2% rate it as lower priority
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Improving Windows security - 67% of respondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 1% rate it as lower priority
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Improving directory security - 63% of respondents rate it as having a higher priority than last year and only 1% rate it as lower priority
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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.
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Increasing speed in resolving production issues has the lowest ratings with only 42% 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 their organizations, 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 achieve security 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.
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External concerns (outside of the control of the respondent’s company) – Example: the number of different agencies and regulations involved in achieving compliance
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Operational concerns – Examples: how to incorporate AD into existing change management processes and setting up the human workflow for user rights approvals/denials (provisioning)
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Organizational politics – Example: getting management to limit the number of people in remote locations with the authority to make changes in access rights
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Technical – Example: security audit log collection and alerting
On a day-to-day basis, Auditing AD changes has supplanted Monitoring 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
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9
2 1 4 * 6 3 * 5 7
Top AD Support Requirements Auditing AD changes Monitoring AD health AD disaster recovery Automated provisioning Implementing AD change management processes and tools Delegation of AD rights Access Control GPO change management Implementing AD troubleshooting tools
Relative Weight 54 47 36 33 32 28 24 21 10
* Not included in the 2005 Survey
II. Current Practices Most organizations consider themselves better than average when rating their overall directory management performance It’s 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”
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 Directory administration Directory troubleshooting Supporting AD users Enforcing security policies Planning and "get ahead" efforts Supporting corporate auditing/compliance efforts Creating and generating reports Monitoring/Tuning performance
% Supporting 100% 96% 96% 95% 95% 91% 89% 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 All 8 Functions 7 out of 8 Functions 6 out of 8 Functions 5 out of 8 Functions 4 out of 8 Functions
% Supporting 73% 13% 7% 7% 1%
Cumulative % 73% 86% 93% 99% 100%
For many respondents, supporting these AD functions is only part of their responsibilities As encompassing as they seem, these functions are only part of the responsibilities of many 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 Over 100% 75% to 100% 50% to 75% 25% to 50% Less than 25%
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% Respondents 21% 17% 17% 21% 24%
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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87% of responding organizations are using or are planning to use Service 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.
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•
•
SLA usage among respondents o 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 reporting that they use SLAs: o 69% have SLAs between IT and end users o 40% are between IT and an external network service provider o 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 categories o 22% have SLAs for all 3 categories
AD Support and Network Availability are the most common SLA attributes 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 AD support End-to-end response time for AD AD uptime Exchange support End-to-end response time for Exchange Exchange uptime Network availability
2006 65% 45% 60% 51% 29% 46% 63%
2005 73% 58% 70% 51% 41% 46% 72%
Surprisingly, relatively few organizations back SLA performance with penalties or incentives Only 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 IT’s 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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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.
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•
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A total of 55% of respondents are currently using ITIL o 22% of respondents are “strong believers in ITIL and have implemented throughout our organization” o 33% of respondents “use ITIL where appropriate” Of the remaining respondents o 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 90% 80% 70% 60% 50% 40% 30% 20% 10% 0% Release Management
Security & Policy Management
Configuration & Auditing
Service Management
Change Management
Over half of the respondents rely on informal and manual approaches for 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 with defined workflows and a review/approval process.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 selecting a 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... Auditing and reporting on identity and access Synchronization of identity information across your environm... Password management (password self service, password synchro... Management of roles Management of groups Providing additional self-service capabilities to end users Replacing a home-grown application a with supported product White pages Other
44% 34% 34% 29% 24% 23% 19% 7% 6% 1%
Microsoft has the largest share of the currently installed provisioning solutions • • • • •
43% -- Microsoft Identity Integration Server 26% -- Home-grown application 8% -- IBM Tivoli Identity Manager 6% -- Sun Java Identity Manager 5% -- Novell Identity Manager
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 in progress. Only four respondents (<2%) plan to deploy Exchange within the next twelve months and 3% are still considering. The remaining 21% have no plans to implement Exchange in their organizations. Approximately 19% of survey respondents are responsible for supporting Exchange in their organization.
MOM is reaching the tipping point in enterprise adoptions Microsoft Operations Manager (MOM) is fast becoming the standard operations environment among responding organizations with usage at 49%. It has already been deployed by 32% of respondents and deployment is in progress for another 17%. Another 5% plan to deploy within the next twelve months and 16% are still considering. The final 31% have no plans to deploy MOM.
MIIS adoption has grown rapidly over the past year In 2005, 19% of the survey respondents were responsible for supporting MIIS in their organizations. In 2006, this number leapt to 39%! Organizational adoption has grown from 31% to 43% as last year’s deployments completed. Based on this progress and the number of companies in the planning cycle, NetPro predicts that in 2007 MIIS adoption should easily exceed 50%. MIIS Adoption Yes, already using Yes, within 3 months Yes, within 6 months Yes, within 12 months Still considering No, don't plan to use
2006 43% 5% 4% 3% 19% 26%
2005 31% 6% 1% 6% 27% 28%
When asked an open-ended question on how their organizations used MIIS, respondents provided a laundry list of applications. The most common uses include identity management, directory synchronization and provisioning. One honest respondent noted that his/her company used MIIS “nowhere near its capabilities!”
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Sharepoint has already made significant inroads in the enterprise market Sharepoint, Microsoft’s 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 responding organizations 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? 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% 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 to install Microsoft’s 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? 40% 35% 30% 25% 20% 15% 10% 5% 0% No plans yet
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More than 12 months after general release
Within 12 months of general release
As soon as it is generally available
2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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Federated Identity Management is still bleeding edge in the DEC community 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 year’s respondents plan to implement it within the next 12 months. Does your organization use Federated Services? 60%
50%
40%
30%
20%
10%
0% No
Still considering
Yes, within 12 Yes, within 6 months months
Yes, within 3 months
Yes, already using
Maintaining security during migration is the biggest challenge facing companies during technical migrations Operational issues such as maintaining security (1st place), balancing between day-today 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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
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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 use some 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 respondent’s 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 1 2 3 4 5 6
Vendor Microsoft (all) NetPro NetIQ Homegrown Quest HP Openview
Mentions 39% 24% 15% 11% 6% 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.
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2006 DEC Attendee Survey Results
2006 Rank
2005 Rank
1 2 3 4 5 6 7 8 9 10 11 12 13 14
1 2 3 4 5 6 11 8 10 9 7 12 14 13
Factor
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Relative Weight
Quality of products (stable, bug free) Total cost of ownership Scalability Ability to integrate with other tools Quality of customer support Ease of use Breadth of product capabilities Best of breed capabilities Use and support of best practices Depth of coverage Dedication to exceeding your expectations in product quality... Meets commitments to you Community support (forums, eBooks, web site resources) Other
65 34 29 28 22 20 20 15 14 13 7 7 3 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 an additional 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, NetPro’s 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
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