Admin Arsenal Case Study: Michael Cole, MCSE MCSA CCNA CNA, Manager, GroupIT, Tenon Group PLC
As the Manager for the United Kingdom's ninth largest (and growing) firm of accountants and business advisors, Michael not only has his firm's core network of 1,900 users in 49 offices to be concerned with but also manages the networks of each firm Tenon acquires. With each acquisition Tenon must quickly and comprehensively gain control over the acquired company's network. Mike uses Admin Arsenal to perform his due diligence and to make light work of inventorying each new network.
We asked Michael to tell us about the network he's responsible for, and how he's using Admin Arsenal.
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Question:
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Can you tell me about the network(s) you administer with AA? How many users in how many locations, what mix of OS's, what kinds of users you support, what kinds of servers are you running?
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Answer:
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We are a Microsoft house and use Microsoft products for all AA type tasks internally. However, I use AA on the newly acquired business before we integrate them as it is small, easy to deploy and gives us the functionality we require. The acquisitions range from a single site with ~10 users to multiple sites with 100+ users. OS’s are a mix of 2000, XP or Vista for client machines and 2k/2k3/SBS for servers, even some *NIX servers too.
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Question:
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How do you use AA day-to-day? Is there one part of the program you use more than the rest?
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Answer:
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Hardware/Software inventory and the ability to run cmds on remote machines is the main reason. AA also gives us a clue to the state of the AD (and IT staff!) where some are clean and well structured, others are full of dead objects and have no real structure. All the above lets us plan the integration with greater accuracy and saves us a lot of on-site time, especially where the site is on the other side of the country.
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Question:
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Can you tell me about a time or two AA was particularly helpful?
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Answer:
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AA is very helpful for each acquisition and saves us a lot of time and effort.
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Question:
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What else should other system administrators know about AA?
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Answer:
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AA is an excellent application that is not only affordable but does its task very well, a definite alternative to those who can’t justify the expensive Microsoft alternatives.
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Question:
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What does your management think of AA?
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Answer:
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Other than the initial purchase, they are unaware of it (accountants).
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