Leicester City Council is the first public sector
organisation to sign-up for the jointMicrosoft/Novellsupport contract to support its Windows and open source
infrastructure.
The contract will help the council prepare for a 6,500-user
single sign-on and identity-management project, due to commence in
April, which is expected to reduce up to 30% on account-related IT
helpdesk calls.
The system will avoid the need for staff to remember several
passwords and will enable them to change their passwords
themselves. The council expects to save up to 30% in IT helpdesk
costs by the time the project is completed in 2010.
The council plans to work with Microsoft and Novell to ensure
its mixed IT environment, comprising Microsoft Windows, Novell
NetWare 6.5 and Novell SuSE Linux, can support the single sign-on
strategy.
The council's IT department, formed from the merger of three
separate departments manages a complex infrastructure comprising
three Microsoft Active Directories and a Novell eDirectory, which
complicates password management. Some council applications such as
Oracle and AS/400 provide their own authentication, further
complicating password management. "Separate user accounts and
passwords for disparate systems are frustrating users," said Ian
Abell, head of technology services at Leicester City Council.
Abell plans to simplify the council's directory services using a
meta
directory product. This is designed to sit above the three
Active
Directories and
eDirectory,
and manages user authentication in one place, to simplify logging
in.
Such software will enable the council provide users with a
single log-in. Abell said the system will also enable the IT
department to provide role-based provisioning, where the IT systems
a staff member has access to is based on their job role, and is
controlled using the council's directory services.
Leicester City Council is the first UK local authority to sign
up to Microsoft and Novell's joint support contract for Linux and
Windows Interoperability. The year-old technical and support
agreement between the two rivals is designed to make it easier for
users to run a mixed IT environment comprising Windows and Linux
servers.