Javelina adds to ADvantage

I first mentioned Javelina Software’s ADvantage package a couple of years ago when the suburban Annapolis, Md., company first rolled out the Active Directory administration tool. At that time, I asked what would be the one part of your job you’d gladly give up and then listed the couple of dozen painful procedures that ADvantage made easier.

Time passes and Javelina last week released Version 2.5 of ADvantage. While the application has improved the way its original features work, which I’ll talk about in a moment, it’s the new features that got my attention.

Particularly noticeable are the five tools for adding, maintaining and removing computer accounts from Active Directory.

Unused computer accounts left in AD can pose a security risk as well as cause a cluttered and inefficient directory. To help solve this and other computer account issues, ADvantage 2.5 provides you with five new tools: Add Computer, Modify Computer, Delete Computer, Search & Replace Computer and Computer Reports.

We sometimes seem to spend all of our time worrying about users, especially user accounts that are old or no longer needed. But hardware can be even more transient than people.

Many companies still follow a “hand me down” tradition for desktop hardware: the power user gets the new machine and passes his old machine to the next user in the “power pecking order.” The least powerful machine then gets sent to a different department, or used as a server of some type (fax server, network monitor, etc.), or is relegated to a closet or may even be sold or given to an employee for home use. In all of these cases modifications or removal of the computers’ records in AD should occur. ADvantage 2.5 can help.

Periodically running a report showing computers that haven’t attached to the network recently could help you track down accounts ready to be disabled or removed, for example.

Among the improvements in this new version is the ability to import lists into the reporting tools. You can import a list of specific objects to report on, instead of having to report on an entire organizational unit (OU) or Domain. There’s a lot more, of course, but you should check the full range of features at https://www.javelinasoftware.com/ad_features.html and see for yourself.

While you’re reading about the features, download the trial version and take ADvantage out for a test drive. If you have a few spare moments, you might even look at “What’s a Javelina?” (https://www.javelinasoftware.com/ne_whats.html), then let me know the last time one of these animals was spotted roaming through suburban Maryland.