totalnetsolutions.net

So, any regular readers might have noticed that the posts have been slow coming the past few months.  Hopefully you don’t think that the depth in those few posts has been lacking.  I’ve been struggling with how to report that I took a new full-time job in April.  Obviously, it’s not stopping me from writing, but has slowed me down a bit.

As you may remember, back in January I was invited to speak at Directory Experts’ Conference, 2008. If you weren’t there, I spoke about integrating 30+ Linux servers with a 2000-user Active Directory forest at one of the U.S.’s biggest home improvement providers. At the time, we had used Centrify DirectControl 4.0 to accomplish this integration, and they were the ones who invited me to speak at DEC.

As part of my preparations, I reached out to Quest Software to ask about Vintella, now renamed “Authentication Services”, and to Likewise Software, who sent me software and support contacts (at my request), so that I could learn Likewise Enterprise as well as I knew Centrify DirectControl. That was a very tall order for Likewise Software to fill, as I had spent the past 6 months learning DirectControl inside out.

After 4 weeks of building demonstration machines (with both products), capturing video in case the demos crashed (which they didn’t), and building a presentation and practicing it, DEC was upon us.  I gave two presentations, one specifically for Centrify on Monday, and the primary one on Wednesday.  At the end of both presentations, we recieved a lot of great questions which Centrify’s Director of Product Development helped answer.

At the end of the conference, Likewise offered me a job. After many discussions with them, my friends and family, and my customers, I decided to take the opportunity. This is not a decision I made to slight Centrify, who’s support of me through my time as a customer was amazing, and who’s assistance through the presentation was fabulous. It’s just one of those opportunities that comes along that I couldn’t pass up.

So for the past 6 months I’ve been the Project Manager for Deployments for Likewise Software. I’ve been on the road about 80% of the time, working with customers to install our software in their environments. Many of the posts I’ve made in that time have been in response to an issue we’ve seen or avoided at a customer of Likewise. I will continue to write these, and I’ll work on doing so at my old (2007) pace of about 3-4 posts a month, since they have been (according to my stats) useful to many people, which is the point of writing this blog.

That means, no changes here compared to last year, but I will have a wider variety of topics, and I’ll likely start mentioning our software specifically. I want it to be clear it’s not advertising, but just the state of what I’m working with. Again, Centrify makes a great product, and I was very happy to have chosen it for my needs at my previous employer.  However, I’ve chosen to move forward with this open source company (Likewise Software) for the next stage of my career, and will continue to write about software and integration with a view towards open source software.

Thanks for continuing to read!

Robert Auch

I see the Ubuntu battery life topic has gotten a litle more attention than normal lately, and we’re happy to have new visitors. I have several new posts in draft right now, work is just keeping them from being published immediately, so come back soon!

Dean Wells started out Day 3 of DEC 2008 with a recap of the Dean and Joe show. He finished up the demo of “how exactly the FSMO role works” which was amazingly detailed and deep. He also explained more about AdminSDHolder and showed off several of Joe Richard’s tools. They also showed some info about how to read deep into the DIT itself that I found really interesting. Yes, I’ve now dumped my test network’s AD database and read it with their tools.

Don Jones had the next session, but I had to skip out on it to prepare for my session. I did hear some great feedback, but was disappointed, since his was one of the sessions I was most looking forward to prior to the conference start.

I spoke at 11am about how to integrate Linux/Unix systems with Active Directory. Download the deck here. It was a great experience, and the bit of feedback I’ve heard so far has been really positive.  It sounds like several attendees have moved their integration projects forward with information I presented, so I think it was successful.

After lunch, the Microsoft Windows and Active Directory product teams had a chalk talk about what’s next with AD where they solicited a LOT of suggestions from the attendees.  I was surprised by the number of people who are using “Prune and Graft” techniques for domain migrations.  Microsoft was very clear, however: do not EVER prune and graft domains.

And I’ll leave it at that.  In all, in was a great experience, and I learned so much.  I’m going to go back again!

Tuesday the 4th started with Stuart Kwan’s keynote at 8am - he talked about an eventual plug and play software “identity bus” where you just plug in identity management software, and it just works - the same as PCI or USB hardware does on those busses. It’s a pretty cool concept, and that Microsoft is driving in that direction is great. I just can’t see how quickly they’ll be able to get there. But it’s a well thought out plan they seem to have. I’m excited to watch it grow.
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I spent a large portion of this week at DEC 2008. I mentioned previously that I’d be presenting as well. Now that I’ve had a couple of days back to catch up with work and home, I wanted to recap the amazing experience, and share a few bits of info that I learned as well.

Sunday March 2nd was only registration and the reception for me. I just used the brief time downtown to meet with the Centrify and Likewise teams who worked so hard over the previous month to help me prepare my presentation for Wednesday. I met a bunch of great new contacts as well - not a conversation passed that I didn’t learn something new.

Monday the 3rd included Gil Kirkpatrick’s discussion on AD administrators vs. software developers, Jerry Camel and Brad Turner’s overview of proper architecture for ILM “2″, how Microsoft is using Windows Server 2008 (Brian Puhl), an amazingly indepth look into AD with Dean Wells and Joe Richards, and a discussion about how Centrify DirectControl works (in Centrify’s vendor track). (more…)