Technical Consultant » ITIL

Identity management and single sign-on (SSO)

Abdul Saleem — Thu, 10 Feb 2011 12:30:09 +0000

Identity management has become a very important issue in IT today. As Web applications have grown throughout the years to support many of our business processes, these same applications have expanded the number of users, groups and roles that must be managed. The more systems that are put in, the greater the burden on the systems administration and help desk teams. If we list the number of accounts we are holding to operate business application, it’s huge. If we don’t have an identity and SSO, below are the major problems.

Problems:-
a) Too many credential
b) Which one for which application
c) Multiple logons
d) Provisioning new accounts
e) Password management
f) Auditing user activity
g) De-provisioning users
h) Managing non-employees access

Aligning IT with Business Strategy

Abdul Saleem — Tue, 03 Aug 2010 05:32:17 +0000

Tough economic time create pressure IT capabilities. We used to hear now IT spending so much, IT department not responsive, they are not sync with business needs. Business knows the value of IT but difficult to value it or present it. It’s very challenging for CIO, to address the part.

IT defines and implement a governance process handle this situation. It meets the business expectation, customer satisfaction, proper KPI, and value of IT spending. Many organisations run IT without any proper governance. There we can see all the activities are expenses. There is no return. A serious thought and action plan highly required to tackle the issue. Improve competency, customer satisfaction, and effective use of IT resources.

Google Apps to Business

Abdul Saleem — Tue, 15 Jun 2010 05:02:11 +0000

All the business organisations looking to reduce the investment and expenditure. Try to cut the capx and opx. Here more focus is opx. There are technologies solutions to help business to reduce the cost and get best breed solutions. One in this category is Google apps for business. Google Apps offers an interesting way to reduce the costs of a business.
What Google Apps Are Offered?
• Gmail
• Google Docs
• Google Calendar
• Google Talk and Many More.
Advantages of Google Apps
1. Accessible everywhere – No longer will you be tied down to a particular computer. Any computer that has the internet can access your documents.
2. Doesn’t require installation – If you frequently bounce between different computers, you may soon grow tired of installing the same applications over and over on each computer. Since these apps are online, all you need is a web browser.
3. Collaboration – If two people want to work on the same document, traditionally they have to email it back and forth. After 10 rounds of back and forth, they may have a finished product. Google Apps allow people to edit the documents simultaneously and save changes as different revisions.
4. Many more features.

To Know More:-
a) your company goes Google
b) Reliable, secure web-based office tools for any size business
c) Rajen Sheth Demonstrates Google Apps
d) Switch from Microsoft® Exchange

Knowledge base for IT Support

Abdul Saleem — Sun, 06 Jun 2010 06:05:09 +0000

Knowledge base or solutions play a good role in IT support operations. Each support engineers providing solutions different ways, also they will be spending more time to build solutions. If we able to build a strong knowledge base, it help in different ways. It acts as one of the key of support operation.

1. All the technicians providing solutions in same flow.
2. It reduces the time to provide solutions.
3. Solutions should be searchable.
4. Solutions should be accurate.
5. Possible to categorise the solutions.
6. Make it PDF documents / audio / video tutorials.
7. New technician can start support easily.
8. End user gets good feel / comfort of solution.
9. It will be easy to share with users.
10. Improve the quality and build more and more solutions.

Active Directory Management & Reporting Tool

Abdul Saleem — Thu, 27 May 2010 04:21:56 +0000

ADManager Plus is a simple, easy-to-use Windows Active Directory Management and Reporting Solution that helps AD Administrators and Help Desk Technicians with their day-to-day activities. With a centralized and Intuitive web-based UI, the software handles a variety of complex tasks like Bulk Management of User accounts and other AD objects, Delegate Role based access to Help Desk Technicians, and generates an exhaustive list of AD Reports, some of which are an essential requirement to satisfy Compliance Audits.

What problems does it solve?
• Eliminates repetitive, and complex tasks associated with AD Management.
• Automates routine AD Management and Reporting activities for AD Administrators.
• Facilitates Creation, Management and deletion of AD objects in Bulk.
• Acts as an essential resource during Compliance Audits like SOX, HIPAA, etc.
What features does it offer?
• Single and Bulk User Management
• Computer Management
• Group Management
• OU-based Administration
• Contact Management
• Help Desk Delegation
• AD reports (Schedulable/Compliance Oriented)

Ref: ADManager Plus

IT Infrastructure Documentation

Abdul Saleem — Mon, 19 Apr 2010 10:07:40 +0000

Documenting Infrastructure is neglecting by most of the companies. Very limited companies are considering its importance and doing it properly. Some of them are doing it sake, they does not keep its quality and informative. There is no point of having document without proper details. We can classify documents in 2 category. One is very relevant to an IT professional second for the end user. Bothe should be its desired form and rich contended.

Infrastructure documents should cover up the low level details and design. This is only way we can protect the infrastructure from the dependency of a particular professional / employee. Whatever infrastructure maintained by a company should covered through its documentation.

Documents sharing to end users should be very brief and less number of pages, more bullet points and attractive to read.

The importance of good documentation
Documentation of your IT infrastructure is a priority.
• easier recovery from failure
• new IT staff will learn your infrastructure faster
• save money when hiring a consultant
• help find ways to improve your infrastructure
• training staff to use the technology
Good documentation criteria
• Clear and easy to read
• Pictures and diagrams
• Well organized
• Comprehensive

Quality and Quantity IT Service Delivery

Abdul Saleem — Tue, 16 Mar 2010 10:59:40 +0000

Now the IT service delivery is more discussed. Considering the global economic impact, the entire organisations are looking towards reducing its operational cost, making use of technology for process automation and increased productivity. Working to enhance or increased employee productivity, reducing head count. Removing non-productive employees, avoiding operational luxury cost. More control on operational areas, which are not considered earlier.

Here IT can play a vital role to help organisation. Develop a quality and quantity oriented service delivery. Identify solution to automate process but simplified. Mechanism to monitor and control operational cost. Tools to measure KPI’s and productivity. Both the quality and quantity of service delivery is important. Work with business identifies the concern, build a solution. Key here is quality and its quantity. Organisation will not pay for what we know but they pay for what we do.