With its expansion into the retail energy market, NRG significantly increased their customer base. The larger workload combined with flat IT resources created a host of new issues around managing and securing information assets. Serious changes were needed to address how IT provisioned and managed its internal and external users – and these changes were needed sooner rather than later. This Customer Success Story outlines how NetIQ helped NRG Energy reach their goal and achieve greater customer satisfaction and immediately save hundreds of hours of monthly manual work.

1. SUCCESS STORY
NetIQ Directory and Resource
Administrator Powers NRG Energy with
Automated Active Directory Management
Executive Summary
Industry Description
Princeton, New Jersey-based NRG Energy
is a Fortune 500 and S&P 500 company
that owns and operates one of the largest,
most geographically diverse power
generation portfolios worldwide. In 2009
and 2010, NRG acquired two Texas retail
energy companies.
Business Situation
With its expansion into the retail energy
market, NRG significantly increased their
customer base. The larger workload
combined with flat IT resources created a The NetIQ Solution customers to about 2 million and six
host of new issues around managing and almost overnight, because prior to
securing information assets. Prior to 2009, NRG Energy was a that, we were basically dealing with the
The NetIQ Difference wholesale power generation company regional power grid and had maybe six
NRG leveraged NetIQ® Directory and primarily engaged in owning and customers total that we interfaced with.”
Resource Administrator™ and NetIQ operating power generation facilities in
Aegis®, along with the expertise of the United States, Europe, and Australia. The Business Challenge
NetIQ Professional Services, to automate With a net power generation of 25,749
identified tasks, and to audit and report megawatts at its 50 facilities, NRG was Louis Klubenspies knew serious
on administrative activity. In doing so, a serious but relatively small player. Its changes were needed to address how
the company not only improved its IT staff was challenged with meeting IT provisioned and managed its internal
security posture, but managed business multiple regulatory compliance mandates and external users – and these changes
productivity more efficiently and
but was otherwise able to keep up with were needed sooner rather than later.
streamlined the evidencing required to
the demands of the business. To be successful, Louis realized that he
demonstrate regulatory compliance – all
while freeing up valuable resources for needed to solve a common problem
additional projects. In 2009 and 2010, NRG acquired two among businesses immersed in sudden
Texas-based companies, Reliant Energy high-growth initiatives: How do we get
NetIQ Products and Services and Green Mountain Energy, signaling more work done with the same amount of
NetIQ Directory and Resource NRG’s entrance into the retail energy resources without compromising customer
Administrator market. Seemingly overnight, NRG service?
NetIQ Aegis added almost 2 million retail customers
NetIQ Professional Services
and three new call centers, and NRG’s For NRG, part of the answer was already
IT department had to quickly adhere to in place with NetIQ® Directory and
additional industry regulations without Resource Administrator®. By introducing
significant staffing growth. NetIQ Aegis®, an IT process automation
platform, NRG had a complete solution
According to NRG’s project engineering that resolved a host of new needs. Using
lead, Louis Klubenspies, “We like to NetIQ Aegis to automate the capabilities
say internally that we went from six provided by NetIQ Directory and Resource

2. The NetIQ Solution In addition, NRG’s rapid growth led
Louis consulted with a number of to a dramatic increase in new user
accounts. To begin with, the three retail
“In talking to the Help internal stakeholders to determine the
call centers typically experienced 100
potential areas for automation based
Desk team, I was able on resource impact, time constraints, percent annual employee turnover. In
addition, 1,500-plus contractor accounts
to determine the NetIQ and overall business value. This analysis
require review every 90 days.
led him to focus on several key NetIQ
solution was saving them capabilities, including:
Using the automation capabilities of
a full week’s worth of NetIQ Aegis combined with NetIQ
> Continuous, automated updating
manual work per quarter of Active Directory from an Directory and Resource Administrator,
Louis was able to automate policy
once the automated HR source
that ensured all required fields were
> A self-service portal that allows
attestation process began users to request changes through populated and all the values were
validated. A customized template
rolling out.” a Web-based console
further streamlined the process and
> Automatic query-based group
management enabled secure data input – ensuring
Louis Klubenspies, > Automated cleanup to keep the integrity and availability of the data
Project Engineer Lead, NRG Energy stale users and computers from in Active Directory.
accumulating
> Group attestations reviews “In talking with the Help Desk team,
I was able to determine the NetIQ
Compliance with standards set by the solution was saving them a full week’s
North American Electric Reliability worth of manual work per quarter once
Corporation (NERC), a utility industry the automated attestation process
watchdog group, was top of mind began rolling out,“ Louis said.
subsequent to the Reliant and Green
Administrator, NRG was able to quickly Mountain acquisitions. Some of NERC’s The labor-intensive task of de-
scale its IT organization, achieve service, advisories come with short deadlines – provisioning was made much easier
compliance, and security control 24 hours or less – for response and through a custom Web portal used by
requirements in a timely fashion – all remediation. Human Resources. The HR contact can
without incurring additional system simply select a name and disable the
administrative costs. Here again, Louis looked to leverage account. A work order is automatically
the powerful automation capabilities generated to remove the user from
Not only did this approach help meet of NetIQ Aegis combined with NetIQ downstream systems once the account
new demands on the IT staff, it also Directory and Resource Administrator. is disabled. The automation tool also
reduced the potential for human He was able to send bulletins to all plant sends confirmation to the Security
error while freeing up NRG system supervisors and collate data from all group for follow-up and remediation.
administrators to take on more e-mail responses into one master Excel
important tasks. spreadsheet. Within eight hours, an Another issue the NRG teams needed to
interim report was sent to the legal and overcome was how to protect sensitive
regulatory department for review.

3. Active Directory security groups against NRG in the Spotlight: Secure, NRG immediately saved hundreds of
changes – a process which may require Compliant, Efficient hours of monthly manual work through
documentation on request, or to meet Mergers and acquisitions can place efficiencies gained by leveraging IT
regulatory requirements. a great deal of strain on existing IT process automation with NetIQ Aegis.
resources, particularly during the It also discovered improved – and
NRG was able to leverage the rich transition to a new or expanded demonstrable – compliance with
auditing and reporting capabilities company. The key for any organization regulations like Sarbanes-Oxley and
of NetIQ Directory and Resource is to intelligently realign resources to NERC Critical Infrastructure Protection
Administrator to generate reports meet new demands, including granting (CIP) standards.
whenever an administrator modified a the proper permissions and privileges
group object. The software blocks the to users coming online or changing In addition, people within the
change if a group is flagged as critical roles. Such was the case for the small IT enterprise began to notice the
and notifies the group owner to get team at NRG when it bought two retail improvements and IT found itself better
approval to proceed. If granted, the energy companies, both thousands of aligned with the business at large.
group is modified and a confirmation miles from its headquarters, and went Ultimately, the new and improved way
is e-mailed to the requestor and the from less than a dozen to millions of of working led to greater customer
group. customers almost overnight. satisfaction. “To say it’s a paradigm shift
is not an understatement,” Louis said,
The combination of NetIQ Aegis NRG needed a solution that would scale “at least not for us.”
and NetIQ Directory and Resource quickly and saw an immediate return
Administrator creates a comprehensive on its investment with NetIQ Directory Learn more today by contacting your
audit trail that clearly identifies the and Resource Administrator combined NetIQ partner or a local NetIQ sales
administrator; what actions he or she with NetIQ Aegis. representative, or by visiting
took including before and after values; www.netiq.com for contact
and when the action was performed. information in your area.
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