- Using Novell products and services, the State of Michigan quickly built
an interactive portal to provide police officers and staff with secure
access to confidential criminal justice information
- The solution has reduced administrative and support costs, delivering
significant return on the State's investment in the project
- The State of Michigan plans to add information and applications from
other state agencies to its portal
WALTHAM, Mass., May 17 /PRNewswire/ -- As a large police agency with
1,500 law enforcement professionals, the Michigan State Police needed to
provide its employees with greater accessibility to information and
applications while maintaining the security of confidential information within
its network and complying with federal security mandates. Working with Novell
Worldwide Services, the State developed an architecture using Novell(R)
Nsure(TM) and Novell exteNd(TM) technologies to provide secure access to
criminal justice records and applications based on the user's identity, while
providing a solid foundation for future growth.
The Michigan State Police uses a variety of operating platforms,
programming languages, databases and criminal justice applications, which are
critical for its local police departments, courts, state troopers and federal
authorities. As the environment became more complex, the management of it
across the organization was becoming more costly and less efficient. The State
was committed to offering Web-based access to several critical applications,
but with shrinking budgets, the State knew it had to be creative to find a
cost-effective solution.
"Several vendors offered proposals, but Novell's consultants came in and
said 'Let us show you,'" commented Gary Blair, agency information officer of
Michigan's Public Protection Agencies. "We were impressed with how fast they
were able to work with us to define exactly what we needed and develop a
solution that supports industry standards and will scale to an unlimited
number of applications and millions of potential users. They saw the potential
of the project from the beginning and were true partners to help us be
successful."
Using Novell eDirectory(TM), Novell Nsure Identity Manager and Novell
iChain(R), the department centralized all its user identity information and
can now automatically synchronize it across multiple applications and use it
to verify a user's credentials, enhancing security to protect confidential
information. When users log in, they view a personalized page with links to
the criminal justice applications they are authorized to access based on their
identity and role within the organization. The Michigan State Police has also
improved security with the ability to track user access to information,
ensuring that only the right people can access confidential data.
State troopers previously had to wait in the office for access through
common terminals, but now via the Internet they can get access from their own
office or from their car, allowing them to spend more time serving the
community. Each user now has single sign-on access to State resources,
eliminating the need for multiple passwords, which has tightened security and
reduced administrative overhead by 40 percent.
"Novell clearly has proven products and is helping define the market in
identity management," said Blair. "Our Novell solution is the difference
between the security of a hardware store lock and that of a bank vault."
Using Novell exteNd, the Michigan State Police integrated several critical
applications into an identity-based portal. With the visual development
environment of exteNd, the department can now develop new applications much
more quickly, and the department is planning to integrate additional
applications into the portal, maximizing the organization's existing
investments. In addition, the State can now provide a single helpdesk for the
portal, instead of one for each application, which has reduced the call volume
by 30 percent.
"When you can't hire new people to do things, you have to use technology
to work smarter," said Blair. "With Novell's help, we've implemented an
identity-based infrastructure and created a dynamic portal on a limited budget
without adding a single IT resource."
The portal has been so successful that the State of Michigan plans to add
systems from other state agencies that will include applications for human
resources, laboratory management and commercial vehicle management. While
Novell consulting worked closely with the State to implement the solution,
they also provided extensive documentation and training so the State's own
team can now integrate new applications on its own.
"Other state agencies are now lining up to add applications to the
portal," said Brad Stoddard, IT manager at the Department of Information
Technology. "It's an opportunity where we can add hundreds of applications for
millions of users, while providing decentralized control to individual
agencies. It clearly utilizes the adage of using technology to do more with
less."
Blair will discuss the success that Michigan State Police has had with its
secure identity management and portal solution at the Gartner IT Security
Summit in Washington, D.C., on June 9, 2004. For more information about Novell
Nsure and exteNd solutions, please visit http://www.novell.com/solutions/nsure
and http://www.novell.com/solutions/extend respectively . For more information
on Novell Worldwide Services visit http://www.novell.com/solutions/ngage .
About Novell
Novell, Inc. (Nasdaq: NOVL) is a leading provider of information solutions
that deliver secure identity management (Novell Nsure), Web application
development (Novell extend) and cross-platform networking services (Novell
Nterprise(TM)), all supported by strategic consulting and professional
services (Novell Ngage(SM)). Active in the open source community with its
Ximian(R) and SUSE(R) LINUX brands, Novell provides a full range of Linux
products and services for the enterprise, from the desktop to the server.
Novell's vision of one Net -- a world without information boundaries -- helps
customers realize the value of their information securely and economically.
For more information, call Novell's Customer Response Center at 888-321-4CRC
(4272) or visit http://www.novell.com . Press should visit
http://www.novell.com/pressroom .
NOTE: Novell, iChain and Ximian are registered trademarks; Nsure, exteNd,
eDirectory and Nterprise are trademarks; and Ngage is a service mark of
Novell, Inc. in the United States and other countries. SUSE is a registered
trademark of SUSE LINUX AG, a Novell company. *All third-party trademarks are
the property of their respective owners.
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