Securex

Success Story

With user numbers for its SAP environment set to rise by 650 percent, Securex was beginning to find identity management a complex proposition. To manage user accounts more effectively across a variety of systems, the company deployed Novell Identity Manager.

Overview

The Securex Group operates across Belgium, Luxembourg, France and the Netherlands, providing a wide range of human resources-related services – payroll, health insurance, employers’ liability insurance and more – to companies and private individuals. In Belgium, Securex has 22 offices and employs 1,500 people.

Challenge

Securex uses a number of different SAP applications – including SAP ERP, Human Capital Management and Customer Relationship Management – each of which has its own production, test and quality assurance environments.

Before users can access any of these applications, an administrator must provide them with usernames and passwords. Keeping track of separate authentication details for all these different systems was becoming difficult for users, and managing all the individual accounts was very time-consuming for IT staff.

“We were planning to give all 1,500 employees access to the SAP CRM application, and this would have been a major task without a more integrated user management system,” said Ignace Schiettecatte, Technical Manager Open Systems Infrastructure at Securex. “Even with 200 users, we were finding it hard to keep control of all the passwords and user details. We knew we had to find a better solution.”

Novell solution

“Novell Identity Manager provides a quick and easy way to integrate new systems with our existing user management landscape.”

Ignace Schiettecatte
Technical Manager Open Systems Infrastructure
Securex

Securex was using Novell eDirectory to govern access rights for its network, and aimed to extend the solution to its SAP landscape.

“If we could manage users in eDirectory and reflect the changes automatically through all our SAP applications and environments, we could reduce our administrator workload significantly,” said Ignace Schiettecatte. “It would also help users, by giving them the same login details for all systems.”

Working with 4all networks, an identity and access management specialist, as well as Novell Consulting, Securex deployed a solution based on Novell Identity Manager, which provides a single point of control for user management. When Securex creates or deletes a user, Novell Identity Manager updates the user directory in all of the company’s SAP applications automatically – with no need for manual intervention.

“4all networks and Novell Consulting did an excellent job,” said Ignace Schiettecatte. “Customising Novell Identity Manager for all the different SAP applications was quite a complicated task, and both our partner and Novell Consulting showed a high level of technical skill and professionalism to complete the project successfully.”

Securex also runs a Citrix environment, which uses Microsoft Active Directory as its source of user information. 4all networks set up Novell Identity Manager to synchronise with this system, too, so Securex now effectively has a single user directory for all its business-critical applications. The Citrix environment was also completely integrated with Novell iChain, providing fine-grained Web access control.

“As our IT needs grow, we often need to deploy new applications – both from SAP and other vendors,” said Ignace Schiettecatte. “Novell Identity Manager provides a quick and easy way to integrate new systems with our existing user management landscape.”

In the immediate future, Securex plans to add seven new SAP systems to the four it already has in production.

“Managing users in 11 different production systems, each with test and quality assurance environments, would simply be impossible without a solution like Novell Identity Manager,” said Ignace Schiettecatte.

Results

“Managing users in eleven different production systems, each with test and quality assurance environments, would simply be impossible without a solution like Novell Identity Manager.”

Ignace Schiettecatte
Technical Manager Open Systems Infrastructure
Securex

Before Securex implemented Novell Identity Manager, setting up a new user was a complicated process. Updating all the different user directories involved sending requests to two or three different administrators, who would then need to reflect the change in each system manually. This could often cause delays of up to 24 hours before a new user could access all the systems.

Now, an administrator creates a single account in Novell eDirectory which is automatically reflected into the relevant systems by Novell Identity Manager. The whole process takes no more than 15 minutes – as little as one percent of the time taken previously.

For the same reason, deletion of user accounts is now equally fast and simple, preventing former employees from accessing the company’s systems, and greatly increasing security.

Previously, users needed to remember multiple different passwords and to change them all regularly, in accordance with company security guidelines. In many cases, users would bend the rules governing password quality, to avoid having too many complicated passwords to remember. The password synchronisation provided by Novell Identity Manager removes this barrier to compliance, saving time and effort for users and improving corporate security.

“We estimate that we would need at least one extra full-time employee to help us create and delete accounts if we weren’t using Novell Identity Manager,” said Ignace Schiettecatte. “And we would have to do without the benefits of password synchronisation, which is a real advantage for our users.”

Partner Information

4all networks, http://www.identitymanagement.be