Novell Executive Summit gives back to the community

When Novell recently hosted an Executive Summit providing top CIOs with the opportunity to gain insight into security and identity management, it also considered the community in which the gathering took place.

Thus, while over 70 IT executives from some of South Africa's top companies took part in a conference with a strong focus on addressing relevant trends and issues in the identity management environment, a local school gained the benefit of a generous contribution for its learners.

According to Markus J Krauss, Vice-President Identity & Security Management EMEA at Novell, there is considerable interest in security and identity management globally.

"Security is nothing new - the emphasis falls on management. The economic downturn is putting pressure on companies to demonstrably comply with regulations, in particular to prevent a repeat of what happened in the financial services sector," he says.

Notably, Krauss says the intervention of governments is placing demands on executives that there is full accountability throughout their organisations. "Statesmen need to give an assurance that the trillions of dollars extended to companies as loans or bailouts are put to good use. Identity and security management plays a central role in providing this assurance."

Industry and government regulations surrounding information security, access control and identity management are commonplace, as are the various solutions and technologies to support these concepts. Krauss says interest today is focused on how to manage these various elements successfully - and cost-effectively.

"Company directors are interested in automating the management and monitoring of their security structures and initiatives. The requirement is elevated in the light of emerging concepts like cloud computing and services on demand, where it is necessary to authenticate and provide access to user populations of thousands or more, with complete integrity."

Paul Webel, ISM Business Unit Lead, Novell South Africa, says that across industry, companies face sometimes staggering complexity in securely provisioning, providing access to and managing applications and resources. "The costs and risks quickly escalate in tandem if this is managed manually," he says. "The administrative nightmare is clear for companies which have several hundred systems and many thousands of users."

He adds that the challenge is not restricted to logical access, but extends to managing physical entry points too. Through its Executive Summit, Krauss says Novell provided executives with perspectives on new challenges, available technology products for automation and management and the insights of key partners delivering solutions in this space.

Potlaki Maine, General Manager - Broadcast IT at the SABC, says that as an organisation presently reviewing its security preparedness, the conference provided valuable insights. "The SABC is a National Key Point and must comply with the applicable Act as a matter of law. The Executive Summit provided an opportunity to see what the market has to offer in support of compliance and the ability to look at security in a comprehensive way."

A unique concept which Novell introduced with this Executive Summit is that of benefiting the community. Says Krauss: "All too often events like these take place with zero impact or advantage to the community. Novell opted to budget for a contribution from each delegate to go towards supporting a local school in Knysna so that our presence here would be meaningful for the community."

Funds donated were used to buy a jungle gym for the primary school and in support of a feeding scheme. Maine says that as a delegate, the concept of giving back to the community is appreciated. "All too often we attend seminars which mean nothing to the people of the area. The goodwill of giving back extends the value I see in such initiatives."