Pelendur: Steward of the Sysadmin

Here we describe Pelendur, a system for the management of common system operation tasks. Specifically, Pelendur focuses on the management of user accounts and related information (such as groups) across platforms and even for particular software packages (like databases) that require user authentication. Pelendur has reduced the massive process of deleting expired accounts and creating new accounts between terms from a week-long operation by several part-time operators (with subsequent cleanup by a collaboration of instructors and staff) into a completely automated process that requires less than 15 minutes of staff work and completely eliminates the need for instructor intervention.