Quite true, Scott. In addition, the way companies use AD data, and the degree of data integrity contained therein, also varies greatly from place to place. When asked about integrating AD with Remedy, the first question I ask is "How reliable is that data"? I very often get hemming and hawing, at which time I remind them that what's worse than having bad data in one place is having it in TWO places, and that they will need to have ONE reliable data source for people data, or risk not being able to identify and/or find the people they're supposed to be helping.
If they cannot depend on whoever is supposed to keep the AD data up to date and accurate, they may want to consider the ramifications of using Remedy as that trusted source of user data. That's not optimal, of course, but sometimes the practical must trump the desirable. Rick -----Original Message----- From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of [EMAIL PROTECTED] Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 8:19 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why Import People into ITSM 7 at All? I think the issue boils down to the fact that not all Active Directory structures are POPULATED equally. It's been my experience that beyond First Name, Last Name, Email Address and Phone number that the way what could be considered "standard attributes" are populated varies greatly across organizations. Scott Parrish IT Prophets, LLC Original Message: ----------------- From: Jason Miller [EMAIL PROTECTED] Date: Tue, 8 May 2007 08:02:36 -0700 To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why Import People into ITSM 7 at All? Hi Norm, I don't think there was probably much of a decision when Remedy (pre BMC and Peregrine) started storing people data in the database. That was in a time when authoritative directories were not quite as standard. Now looking forward. My first thought was that as not all companies may have an authoritative directory (or one dependable/clean enough to use) and thus they need to include a place to store people. But then also thought about the number of free directory servers (MS ADAM, Sun One) that could be used (or even bundled with ARS?) to hold the people data if there wasn't and LDAP source to connect to. But now you have another product to support, patch and a possible security issue if you don't have somebody knowledgeable with directories. So is BMC in a position to force a company to have a directory server? Now it would be really cool to have an option upon install to use/install a directory server or import the people workflow but can you imagine how complicated the install and workflow could get? Jason From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 7:00 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why Import People into ITSM 7 at All? ** Rick: Yeah, don't get me wrong-I'm certainly not criticizing those of us out there who choose not to untangle the mass of spaghetti in ITSM 7 as far a people data goes. In fact, even if you had the time I'd recommend not doing it because it deviates so drastically from the OOTB design and code. I'm questioning BMC's decision to go that way in the first place. _____ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Rick Cook Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 8:52 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Re: Why Import People into ITSM 7 at All? I see what you're saying, Norm, and in a theoretical sense, I agree. However, ITSM 7 is both very complicated and new enough that knowing what existing workflow to untangle to draw the data directly from AD would take more time than most of us have. So in the absence of a viable option of having two data sources, I will settle for the second best outcome - that of not having to maintain two duplicate data sources. The AD data that is actually useful will be maintained only there, and copied to Remedy. The rest, which is mainly better off in Remedy anyway (i.e. Group permissions, etc.) will be maintained in Remedy. Rick _____ From: Action Request System discussion list(ARSList) [mailto:[EMAIL PROTECTED] On Behalf Of Kaiser Norm E CIV USAF 96 CS/SCCE Sent: Tuesday, May 08, 2007 5:54 AM To: [email protected] Subject: Why Import People into ITSM 7 at All? ** All: Inspired by the recent thread concerning the best way to import people into ITSM 7, I wanted to pose the slightly rhetorical question, "Why import people at all?" I'm not certain I agree with the methodology of duplicating data from one existing data source into another. If the Active Directory is an organization's authoritative source of user data, why import it into a separate database? Why not just do a direct pull from the AD on-the-fly? We don't use ITSM here (yet), but we don't import people data-we just pull AD data on-the-fly and it works like a champ. Thoughts? Norm __20060125_______________________This posting was submitted with HTML in it___ __20060125_______________________This posting was submitted with HTML in it___ __20060125_______________________This posting was submitted with HTML in it___ ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers Are" -------------------------------------------------------------------- mail2web.com - Enhanced email for the mobile individual based on MicrosoftR Exchange - http://link.mail2web.com/Personal/EnhancedEmail ____________________________________________________________________________ ___ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers Are" _______________________________________________________________________________ UNSUBSCRIBE or access ARSlist Archives at www.arslist.org ARSlist:"Where the Answers Are"
