I’m not shy about telling people that the NetPro Directory Experts Conference (DEC) is THE place to be for anyone involved with Microsoft’s Active Directory and its related technologies, including CardSpace, Identity Lifecycle Manager, Active Directory Federation Services and Rights Management Services. One thing I look forward to is the results of the survey NetPro conducts among the attendees. I’ve now got this year’s results in my hands, but you can get your own copy and see what your peers have to say.

This year 314 of the 675 attendees completed the survey. And while their answers are interesting, it’s the comparisons to the 2005 and 2006 surveys that I find fascinating. For example, when asked how many users they supported, 89% of this year’s respondents answered 5,000 or more. Last year, 84% of respondents selected that answer, and 83% in 2005. That could mean that the average attendee is now coming from a larger company or (more likely, I think) that each of you now has to support more people (and often on a lower budget!).

But the survey also supports the contention that we’re all becoming a bit more specialized in our coverage areas. In 2005, 14% reported that they were administratively responsible for “the entire network.” This dropped to 13% last year and to 8% this year. One area that seems to be at least partially responsible for this trend is security: in 2005, 54% reported they were responsible for security; that dropped to 45% last year and only 39% this year. The conclusion is that separate security organizations are being implemented at more and more enterprises all the time.

Something that hasn’t changed, though, is the respondents’ prioritization of the “most important day-to-day requirements for Active Directory,” No. 1 and No. 2 priorities – for the third year in a row – are “auditing AD changes” and “monitoring AD health.” Even as the tools to do these things have improved, we evidently still feel the need to keep watching closely over what’s happening.

The survey wasn’t only about job responsibilities, though – job satisfaction questions revealed some surprising answers, maybe even a recipe for the ideal job. As the final report put it:

When it comes to job satisfaction, company type, job experience, and specific job responsibilities all matter. So if you want to improve your job satisfaction, consider the following findings: