So yet again, this blog post comes as I sit in the RDU airport, leaving behind sunny blue skies and ~50 degree temperatures to arrive just before midnight in cold, wet snow. — it is good to get home!  I’ve been in Raleigh again for a couple days, this time for Red Hat IdM (Identity Management( training, and Value Selling training.  Both were great sessions — of course I enjoy good technical sessions, but I learned quite a bit from the Sales class too.  It really opened my eyes to a few bad habits, which I can now work to address.

Red Hat’s IdM is pretty cool — I wish I had know more about it sooner.  It comes with Red Hat Enterprise Linux, and provides a unified LDAP, Kerberos, DNS, and CA solution.  Plus, when used in combination with SSSD, you get a nicely managed user/group/policy solution consistent across your RHEL servers and desktops (and to a lesser extent, other *nix systems that support Kerberos and LDAP).  I have been a longtime proponent of OpenLDAP and MIT Kerberos, and still believe they are each very powerful solutions — but Red Hat’s IdM is a very cohesive suite that ties multiple functions and technologies together very well.

Now to really get down to studying for the upcoming RHCE exam — wish me luck!