In other responsibilities sys admins have is managing users and hardware. sys admins have to be able to create new users and give them access to their company's resources. On the flipside of that, they also have to remove users from an IT infrastructure if users leave the company. It's not just user accounts they have to worry about, sys admins are also responsible for user machines. They have to make sure a user is able to log in and that the computer has the necessary software that a user needs to be productive. Sys admins also have to ensure that the hardware they are provisioning or setting up for users is standardized in some way. We talked in an earlier course about imaging a machine with the same image. This practice is industry standard with dealing with multiple user environments. Not only do sys admins have to standardize settings on a machine, they have to figure out the hardware lifecycle of a machine. They often think of the hardware lifecycle of a machine in the literal way. When was it built? When was it first used? Did the organization buy it brand new or was it used? Who maintained it before? How many users have used it in the current organization? What happens to this machine if someone needs a new one? These are all good questions to ask when thinking about an organization's technology. sys admins don't want to keep a ten year old computer in their organization. Or maybe they do. Even that's something they might have to make a decision on. There are four main stages of the hardware lifecycle. Procurement. This is the stage where hardware is purchased or re-used for any employee. Deployment. This is where hardware is set up so that the employee can do their job. Maintenance. This is the stage where software is updated and hardware issues are fixed if and when they occur. Retirement. In this final stage, hardware becomes unusable or no longer needed and it needs to be properly removed from the fleet. In a small position, a typical hardware lifecycle might go something like this. First, a new employee is hired by the company, human resources tells you to provision a computer for them and set up their user account. Next, you allocate a computer you have from your inventory or you order a new one if you need it. When you allocate hardware you may need to tag the machine with a sticker so they can keep track of which inventory belongs to the organization. Next, you image the computer with the base image for further using a streamlined method that we discussed in our last course, operating systems and you. Next, you name the computer with a standardised host name. This helps with managing machines. More on that when we talk about directory services later. In regards to the name itself, we talked about using a format such as username-location, but other host name starters can be used. Check out the supplemental reading to find out more. After that, you install software the user needs on their machine. Then the new employee starts and you streamline the setup process for them by providing instructions on how to log into their new machine, get email etc. Eventually, if a computer sees a hardware issue, a failure, you look into it and think through the next steps. If it's getting too old, you'll have to figure out where to recycle it and where to get new hardware. Finally, if a user leaves the company you'll also have to remove their access from IT resources and wipe the machine so that you can eventually re-allocate it to someone else. Imaging. Installing software and configuring settings on a new computer can get a little time consuming. In a small company you don't do it often enough where it makes much of a difference, but in a larger company a time consuming process just won't cut it. You'll have to learn automated ways to provision new machines so that you only spend minutes on this and not hours.