[rhn-users] Fwd: [rhn-satellite-users] Recent and Upcoming RHN Account Policy Changes

[inode0]

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: inode0 <inode0 at gmail.com>
Date: Feb 6, 2007 2:25 PM
Subject: Re: [rhn-satellite-users] Recent and Upcoming RHN Account
Policy Changes
To: rhn-users-list at redhat.com, rhn-satellite-users at redhat.com


On 2/6/07, Máirín Duffy <duffy at redhat.com> wrote:
> Hi folks,
>
> John and Dave were correct in their observations about the recent RHN
> account policy changes [1] - we should announce these changes ahead of
> time to give customers both a chance to give us some feedback and to
> absorb these changes into their process. I apologize that this was not
> the case.

We do appreciate any efforts you make toward including more of us in
the feedback loop prior to rolling out policy changes of this nature
in the future.

> The user account changes are part of a much larger upcoming set of
> improvements in our account system across all customer-facing services,
> not just RHN. These were initiated in part due to customer feedback
> about how our account systems work.
>
> The single email address per account policy change in particular is part
> of an improvement to support single sign on accounts; right now you may
> have multiple accounts to access various Red Hat applications such as
> RHN, the Red Hat Store, customer service & support, Issue Tracker, etc.
> We are working to consolidate these systems under a single account
> system so you'll only need one account to access these different
> applications.

While this isn't a real big selling point to me personally, having
some reason for the policy change helps me understand why some extra
work will now be required on my end. I don't need to wonder why in the
world are they making me do extra stuff now. If in the future things
like this get announced prior to rolling them out I think my feathers
wouldn't get ruffled so often.

> Another upcoming improvement related to this account policy change is a
> multi-organizational account management. Multi-organizational management
> will allow one Red Hat account to have 'sub-accounts.' So, for example,
> if you've 100 purchased RHEL AS subscriptions for your servers and 100
> RHEL WS subscriptions for your workstations, you'll want to make sure
> that folks who should be running RHEL WS do not have access to RHEL AS
> and cannot access subscriptions from your server group. With these
> upcoming changes, you'll be able to split your account into different
> 'organizations', one that only has access to a particular set of RHEL WS
> subscriptions. Then you can create accounts in the WS organization for
> those users who you only want to have access to those WS subscriptions.
> Basically, this new account system will let you have better control over
> what subscriptions and systems users in your organization can access in RHN.

This has the potential to be a huge benefit to our organization. But
the devil is always in the details and now that the door is cracked
open a tiny bit here are a couple of questions to get the ball
rolling.

Will there be administrative roles associated with a sub-account? Can
the organization admin assign sub-account admin privs to another
account enabling that account to control the goings on in the
sub-account (create users/keys/groups)?

Thanks,
John