| Configuration Management, Security Management & Compliance Management |
| Password Reset Solution: Account Reset Console |
| Transparent Automatic User Password Synchronization between Servers/Domains |
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Customer: University of Iowa Credit Union.
Products Used: User Manager Pro and Service Account Manager
Problem Definition
Alan Clingan, an MCSE, works in the IT department at the University of Iowa Community Credit Union. He is responsible for managing twenty-five servers and 165 workstations spread out between five buildings that are up to fifty miles apart. Each day, sensitive and private customer information is sent back and forth between branches. Obviously, security is of the utmost importance.
But when it came to routine maintenance, such as changing the administrator password on all of his servers on a regular basis, Clingan was at the mercy of his schedule to make the trek to each location and update the servers individually. He tried some of Microsoft’s built in tools for remote management, but in the end they did not offer much of a time savings.
"The thing was, we ended up not being able to change the passwords on our servers often enough for my liking," said Clingan." We needed a tool that could make this vital task feasible considering our work load."
Problem Resolution
To solve this problem, Clingan, looked at two of Lieberman Software's mass management tools - Service Account Manager Pro and User Manager Pro.
By using Service Account Manager, Clingan is now able to change all of his service account passwords on all of his servers in one operation. What used to take most of a day can now be completed in a few minutes.
"I was instantly impressed with how quickly and easily I could make complex changes to my environment," he said. "By using these products I can now see deep into my network, and can perform important security maintenance every 30 days."
With User Manager Pro, Clingan is able to change the local administrator account password on all of his machines in a single operation. He is also able to verify that every machine has received the change through the advanced logging capability of the application.
"Besides saving me from having to journey out to update each machine, the program automatically retries offline machines," Clingan continued. "Knowing that all my machines are going to be hit with the change has saved me from dozens of potential headaches."
Clingan found that by using just a few features of User Manager Pro and Service Account Manager he was able to reduce his workload and increase the overall security of his environment, more then justifying the cost of the tools.
"These tools truly are the best of what is available," Clingan concluded.
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