I had a friend who didn’t believe that anything was worth owning unless he had fixed it himself or somehow customized it. He drove an International Harvester Scout (still one of my favorite vehicles) because it could be repaired with duct tape, a screw driver, a crescent wrench and whatever liquid happened to be in our cooler. He was a great friend to have on an extended wilderness rafting trip because he could jury rig anything.
I think there are lots of people with this same mentality in the IT world.
If something hasn’t been scripted by their own hands to accomplish a very specific task they have no need for it. And sometimes it’s because they are that good.
But sometimes they aren’t. And sometimes third party solutions exist because they make it easier, or more efficient, or better for the business than using native tools.
For whatever reason, I came across a couple of examples this week.
The first is the sometimes simple task of provisioning large numbers of users into AD. I think it’s on my mind because this is the time of year when a number of my clients are hiring new “classes” of associates or new grads. So, you can do it this way or you can use a Active Directory provisioning / de-provisioning tool that ties right into your HRIS. Oh, and the same tool can also update all the other changes that happen to an employee over the course of their tenure with your company without IT ever having to touch their account.
The second has to do with adding Active Directory accounts to SharePoint. You can absolutely do it with native tools. Or, you can use a solution that uses dynamic security groups to assign SharePoint access. This has the added benefit of ensuring that when a user is de-provisioned out of AD (usually that means terminated) their SharePoint access is also deactivated.
I still think of my friend fondly every time I see one of those old Scouts on the road, but I can’t help but notice that they are usually in the slow lane.
Jonathan Blackwell
View ProfileSince 2012, Jonathan Blackwell, an engineer and innovator, has provided engineering leadership that has put GroupID at the forefront of group and user management for Active Directory and Azure AD environments. His experience in development, marketing, and sales allows Jonathan to fully understand the Identity market and how buyers think.