Craig Roberts is chief information officer for Iqubed, a Houston-based consulting firm specializing in maximizing business potential through inspired design and deployment of technology. Roberts has used Ecora Software products for approximately two years. He sent this Q&A case study to tell us how it's going.

Do you more often use Ecora's Configuration Auditor or Configuration Reporter?

I use the Ecora Configuration Reporter when on-site with a new client to discover, assess, and audit critical configuration data for all of their Windows servers. This allows me to quickly identify and illustrate system vulnerabilities or configuration errors. From this point, I am able to specifically pinpoint the services that our company, IQubed, can provide to resolve the identified issues. Used in combination with a tool like the Fluke OneTouch® Series II, I can literally walk into a business for the first time and have their network completely profiled and evaluated within thirty to forty-five minutes.

I use the Ecora Configuration Auditor with existing clients and on my own laboratory network to identify, track, and monitor changes to Windows servers during the application of service packs, hot fixes, or changes in networking parameters. Utilizing this method of before and after snapshot documentation, I am able to provide quick security auditing, problem resolution, consistency checking, and proactive administration for both IQubed's clients and our own network.

Which features do you find most beneficial in your consulting work?

There is no question that the Ecora Configuration Reporter is the "must have" tool for anyone serious about providing top flight IT consulting services. The ability to quickly collect and export hundreds of configuration settings into html, DOC, or delimited text files for a relational database or spreadsheet is indispensable. Plus, the Reporter generates plain-English reports with a few mouse clicks that are easily understood by the non-technical clients to whom IQubed markets it's services.

Can you provide any specifics of how much time you have saved on specific jobs?

IQubed specializes in network design and implementation for small to medium business environments. Due to this target market, one of our main product recommendations is Microsoft's Small Business Server® solution. Proper, detailed documentation of the Microsoft Small Business Server® environment with an average of ten to fifty client systems will normally average between eight hundred and fifteen hundred single-spaced, double-sided pages. Anywhere from twenty to fifty hours of labor time is normally worked into the service package to produce a bound, hard-copy version of the documentation for the client. The time, of course, is dependent on the installation and configuration variances required by the project. Utilizing the Ecora product, IQubed has been able to reduce the documentation time required from twenty to fifty hours down to between two and ten hours.

In a nutshell, what is the best thing you can say about Ecora and how it helps you?

The nutshell answer: quality, top to bottom. The slightly longer answer-Ecora solutions are:

• Well written, stable software that just plain works!

• Extremely detailed in it's analysis and documentation of the various platforms it is written to analyze.

• Non-intrusive in that it can run off a consultant's laptop or client's workstation instead of requiring installation onto a production server.

• Reasonably priced license options.

• Top notch service, sales, and technical support staff. Not that you need to call them very often, but when you do the experience is a pleasure.