As the year draws to a close, we are busy here at SDM Software putting the wraps on updates to existing products. Today I wanted to announce two product updates that are getting ready to ship:
- Group Policy Automation Engine 4.1: This update to our venerable PowerShell-based Group Policy “SDK” includes some holiday treats, including added support for Advanced Audit Policy Configuration and PowerShell-based Logon/Logoff–
Startup/Shutdown Scripts. It also includes some bug fixes and performance improvements for scenarios where folks are managing a lot of GP settings or GPOs. And finally, we’ve re-introduced the SDM-GPAEScript module that provides some handy script cmdlets for making it easier to read and write GPO settings.
- Group Policy Compliance Manager 1.5: GPCM 1.5 is the long-awaited update to our very powerful Group Policy enterprise reporting solution. GPCM provides the ability to
collect computer and user-based GP health and settings data from system across your environment, which allows you to quickly determine where GP settings have applied (and where they haven’t). This is particular useful when it comes to all-important security configurations that have been laid down by GP. In the 1.5 release we support new collection options for larger environment, including a new agent-based collection system and support for SQL Server-based repositories. We also provide an update to the previously released GPCM PowerShell module, which lets you perform command-line based queries of collected data to determine things like GPO impact, where settings might be missing from particular systems and where users have logged into Windows systems.
This time of year can often be slow for some IT folks, and a good opportunity to learn some new tools and techniques. I encourage everyone to download these two new releases, kick the tires, and let us know what you think. If upping your “Group Policy Game” in 2017 is in your plans, our solutions might be just the thing you need!
Thanks for reading,
Darren