New York's mammoth subway and bus system is now being supported
by network security and
identity management technology from Novell.
New York City Transit has the world's largest fleet of subway
trains and public buses, and transports more than 7 million people
each day.
NYC Transit is using Novell identity and security management
solutions to centralise and automate its identity infrastructure
for 49,000 staff members across 500 locations, ensuring timely and
secure employee access to network resources.
The system is being used to address a number of requirements at
the organisation.
As NYC Transit is transitioning its manual train control system
to a computerised environment, it required a solution that would
ensure its large number of distributed employees and contractors
could quickly and securely access network applications and
buildings.
Revoking network and building access for terminated employees
was also time consuming and posed security risks. In addition, the
agency maintains confidential personnel data on its large workforce
and manages benefits information for 36,000 retirees and their
spouses.
In addition, NYC Transit needed a solution that would work
across a mixed server operating environment consisting of Novell
Open Enterprise Server, Microsoft Windows, UNIX and a variety of
mainframe and mid-range servers.
To address these needs, the organisation selected Novell
Identity Manager and
Novell Access Manager to automatically synchronise user
identities across multiple access systems and operating
platforms.
Employees and contractors have role-based access to applications
and buildings based on authoritative user data. The agency has been
able to reduce time spent on user provisioning by 60% and can now
establish new user accounts in a few hours, rather than a few
weeks.
With centralised identity management, IT staff can provide users
with a single ID and password to access applications, minimising
the time spent on password technical support. For its 36,000
retirees, NYC Transit provides VPN access to its network, and uses
Novell SecureLogin to provide secure, single sign-on access,
reducing the administrative costs of managing the agency's benefits
programme.