[RKDinOKC]

Well the company I work for uses an AS400, an IBM minicomputer, to run the company. It has it's own user and password system for terminal access. Almost all user access the AS400 system with Microsoft Windows desktop or laptop computer and save and access files on servers. This uses the Windows Server User and password environment called Active Directory. There are a few Macs used in the graphics and design departments that have their own servers using Mac user and password environment. There are also several other devices that have their own user and password systems for network and devices access and security.

The IT department assigns a login and password for each user and has a database to keep track of the users, their passwords, and what they have access to. This has worked very well and is easy to maintain...BUT the IT Director wants everyone's password to change every couple of weeks and to do that there needs to be a central password server. This is typically done with Microsoft's Active Directory and most all systems have the ability to integrate with Active Directory.

The problem is that our IT staff is not the sharpest and hire consultants to come in and set things up. Because we are in Oklahoma those consultants typically aren't much sharper than our staff and there are always problems from the consultants "short cut" implementations.

I just get frustrated because I am the Mac guru and EVERY time these consultants come in they make changes and it blows up, they immediately blame it on the Macs. Many times the macs aren't even involved and the macs still get blamed.