Four UK police forces are to use technology from Novell
to bolster the security of their networks.
The forces in Cambridgeshire, Kent, Suffolk and Merseyside have
chosen Novell’s strategic enterprise agreement (SEA), a package
that includes seven of Novell’s leading software solutions.
These include the NetWare operating system and identity
management systems. In total 18,000 police employees across the
four forces are covered by the deals.
Information security is a high priority for law enforcement
organisations as the nature of police work frequently requires
shift workers to share computers without compromising the
confidentiality of different investigations.
The forces will use Novell Open Enterprise Server, Novell
SecureLogin, Novell Account Manager, Novell BorderManager, Novell
GroupWise messaging and Novell ZENworks for application
management.
The package is costing each force from £60 per workstation or
per user.
Chris Pyne, IT support manager for Merseyside Police, said, “The
SEA is a flexible package, which suited us. Like many police forces
we have a lot of shift workers sharing desktops and we can choose
to pay for licenses per computer rather than per employee, which is
far more cost effective for us.”