Novell delivers comprehensive solution for managing employee identities 

Novell has announced the delivery of Novell Employee Provisioning, a new one Net solutions offering designed to automate the process of creating, modifying and maintaining user identity profiles and access privileges between PeopleSoft and other business applications.

Novell consulting services manager Jaco Burger says Novell Employee Provisioning is the first of a set of new "Jump Start" solution offerings that combine Novell software and services to simplify the creation of a one Net environment. "Based on Novell`s identity management software, the employee provisioning solution enables customers to dramatically reduce administration costs and increase competitiveness by automating the process of securely granting, maintaining and revoking access rights to network resources."

This announcement is part of Novell`s effort to expand the scope of its e-business solutions and make these solutions more readily available for customers to deploy. It also marks a key milestone in the integration of Novell and its newly acquired global subsidiary, Cambridge Technology Partners. Supporting customer choice, similar e-business solutions are also available from Novell`s Consultant and System Integrator partners. Small and medium-sized businesses can enjoy the benefits of Net services-based solutions by working with Novell`s channel partners.

"As enterprises use the Internet to deliver services, the number of users who must access their applications -- their own workers, their business partners and their customers -- explodes. The problem becomes how to provide potentially millions of accounts with the appropriate access to applications and systems," said Roberta Witty, research analyst with Gartner. "Within the enterprise, this problem is compounded by the increasingly transitory nature of employees, with jobs replacing careers and employees constantly changing companies or changing roles within a company. Provisioning solutions help solve this problem by combining functions like enterprise user administration and the management of access rights, enabling a single user identity across the enterprise."

By linking independent systems such as e-mail, HR applications, facilities access or specialised departmental data, Novell Employee Provisioning allows a company to create a consistent identity for each employee across all critical business applications. Connecting these disparate business applications eliminates the costly and time-consuming task of updating each one individually; customers are able to update a single authoritative data store and have those changes replicated to all other critical systems based on their unique business rules. For example, a new employee created in a company`s PeopleSoft system would automatically trigger the creation of a new user in eDirectory, a Lotus Notes e-mail account, facilities access privileges and access to other internal applications the employee needs to be productive.

"Novell is developing a series of new Jump Start solution offerings that combine the e-business solutions expertise of Novell`s Cambridge Technology Partners subsidiary with Net services software, including Novell eDirectory, Novell DirXML and Novell OnDemand Services," explains Burger. "With Novell Employee Provisioning, Novell will provide Cambridge consulting services to automate access control for corporate resources based on an employee`s status within the PeopleSoft employee management application.

"Through eDirectory and DirXML integration, automated access control can extend across multiple business applications such as SAP, Microsoft Exchange, Siebel and Lotus Notes, and other business systems such as electronic building access. With this integration, new employees gain immediate access to the applications and resources they need to be productive, instead of waiting days or weeks to obtain individual access to each system. When an employee leaves the company the procedure is reversed. Changing a user`s employment status in PeopleSoft or removing them from another database will simultaneously remove that employee`s access rights to applications throughout the enterprise, protecting corporate security," he continues.

"The delivery of the Novell Employee Provisioning offering is the first of many milestones demonstrating the value of combining Novell`s e-business solutions expertise with its Net services software to enable one Net solutions. Most important, the solution drives an impressive ROI for our customers. Specifically, the employee provisioning solution will help customers dramatically lower their administrative overhead, increase network security, lower helpdesk calls and their associated costs, and increase user productivity -- while leveraging their existing IT infrastructure," concludes Burger.