Handling users on multiple systems

[Bennett Samowich <brs@ben-tech.com>]

I am about to get the fortunate, or unfortunate :), privilege to be part
of a core system change over at our site.  We will be replacing our rs6000
with 2 HP9000 systems. (1 for data, 1 for RF, each mirrored to the other,
etc).  We also have, from our accounting/HR departments, a NT network
developing as well.  Now add in our four other remote sites, and you can
see that we are definitely multi-platform.  What is starting to happen is
that users are winding up with several passwords and account names for
each of the different systems.

-- Main database system
-- RF system (Radio Frequency picking/loading/tracking)
-- e-mail server
-- pc/NT accounts
-- Time & Attendance system (time clocks)
-- Human resource/Payroll (mostly accounting users)

Is this normal to find users at a site having this many
accounts/passwords?  I have tried to coordinate all of the account names
to be the same thus leaving the passwords to be different, however some,
well several, of the users still have trouble keeping it all straight.  I
thought of writing some routine that would synchronize the account names
and passwords across all of the various servers, but that would/could also
weaken the security of the site. (one password leaks all).

Any ideas, thoughts, or tools?

Thanks in advance,
	Bennett

+------------------------------------------------+
| System analysis is the art of find exactly the |
| right wrench to pound in the correct screw.    |
+------------------------------------------------+