NetIQ Active Directory Survey, Nothing New
NetIQ put out an interesting press release about a study they conducted with results that unveil nothing new. The results seem to say that Security is important to keeping your Active Directory safe from inadvertant or malicious changes. What surprised me was that they needed to do a study to figure this out sooner.
I had to laugh when I read “76 percent of survey participants now consider Active Directory management as a critical or important component of their evolving Identity and Access Management (IAM) strategies.” - since while NetIQ is just now finding this out, I’ve been building this into my products since 2004.
Two years ago I wrote a short white paper on this subject. (See Change Management: Path to a Secure, Efficient and Risk-Free Active Directory) Despite only being 3 pages long I think the paper puts a simple frame around why change control over the people and processes touching your directory is critical.
What I don’t see from NetIQ is a strategy that reflects their study’s results. I personally believe that Roles, Rules and Work-flow must be in a single product because each has a tremendous influence on the other. Roles determine “what” changes a user can make Rules and work-flow determine “how” and “if” a change should be made. If these three items are not tightly integrated it is difficult to achive a consistent enforcement of change management.
