Special Operations inventories desktops

Special Operations Software this week plans to unveil an extension to Microsoft's Active Directory's management features that will let users take inventory of everything installed and configured on a desktop.

Specops Inventory is tied into the group-policy features of Active Directory and is designed to give users the ability to collect and report on PC and user data.

Microsoft's group-policy objects, which are supported on Windows 2000 and XP and on Windows Server 2003, let administrators manage, customize and lock down desktop and server settings based on a set of policies maintained in the directory.

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Special Operations Software this week plans to unveil an extension to Microsoft's Active Directory's management features that will let users take inventory of everything installed and configured on a desktop.

Specops Inventory is tied into the group-policy features of Active Directory and is designed to give users the ability to collect and report on PC and user data.

Microsoft's group-policy objects, which are supported on Windows 2000 and XP and on Windows Server 2003, let administrators manage, customize and lock down desktop and server settings based on a set of policies maintained in the directory.

"Group policy is a powerful and convenient way to centrally manage software settings and restrictions so you can support various configurations and lockdown settings," says Peter Pawlak, an analyst with independent research firm Directions on Microsoft. "We would love to see it become a Windows software standard, so that any company that creates a product, whether server or client, would have a way to centrally manage those things through group policy."

Special Operations is taking a bit of a different tack initially by using components of its client-management software Special Operations Suite, which includes inventory, and reworking them as group-policy extensions that plug into the Group Policy Editor in Active Directory. Special Operations' conversion of its suite lets companies build on familiar Microsoft tools rather than having to learn new interfaces. Specops Inventory does not require users to install any software on their clients.

"A lot of users have been asking us, 'Why should we set up products and buy extra servers instead of using what we already have?' " says Robert Lundh, CEO of Special Operations. "So we are extending what people already have."

Special Operations also is extending what users can inventory, going beyond just hardware and software data with Specops Inventory and looking at user data, such as what print queues are in use and what the mapped network drives are.

The inventory capabilities also allow users to collect and report on installed operating systems, services and drives, security information, registry data, and user profiles and settings.

IDC says close to 80% of users in North America have Active Directory deployed, and third-party vendors are racing to provide extension and ease-of-use enhancements around group policy. In the past few months, Desktop Standard, NetPro, Quest ScriptLogic and Microsoft have released software to enhance group policy.

Specops Inventory requires a SQL Server database or Microsoft SQL Server 2000 Desktop Engine. Inventory is priced at just under $11 per user for 500 to 1,000 users.

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