Dell helps Radboud University gain control of provisioning and access governance

Radboud University, a leading Dutch academic community, deployed Dell One Identity Manger to gain control of both access governance and provisioning, reducing by 50 percent the time it takes students to complete the enrolment process. While many identity and access vendors require customers to choose between provisioning and governance, Identity Manager addresses both, enabling the university to create an efficient and effective identity and access management strategy that will serve for years to come.

In addition to being a leading academic community, Radboud University is home to several research institutions and is affiliated with one of the largest academic hospitals in the Netherlands. As such, the organisation manages a constantly changing user population of 45,000-50,000, including students, faculty, alumni, independent researchers, contractors, and others. With a continually changing population, the university faced several challenges including “entitlement creep,” which occurred as users changed roles. Access required for their new roles was added, but access they needed for their old role was not always terminated, creating risk by giving large numbers of users access and entitlements beyond what they needed.

With 10,000 students entering and leaving the university every year – students becoming alumni at graduation, and new students needing speedy enrolment in the fall – the university also needed to make real-time changes to students’ access rights. In addition, steady updates to national laws and business requirements regarding access made it necessary for the university to have a solution that enabled them to make those changes quickly and easily.

The school found it difficult to manage all of these challenges with its legacy Sun Microsystems IDM solution without a significant increase in staffing. In addition, an uptick in data leaks at Dutch institutions in general caused university officials further unease. Because the university handles a great deal of sensitive data, including personal information, bank account information and research data, Radboud officials were particularly concerned about the potential cost to reputation and finances if a leak occurred due to inappropriate access.

Gaining control of governance and provisioning, while increasing user satisfaction and decreasing IT workload
Working with Dell implementation partner Intragen, Radboud University evaluated the market’s identity and access management solutions, and chose Dell One Identity Manager to address its multiple IAM needs. Completeness of solution was critical to the university’s solution choice, and Identity Manager was selected for its ability to address both provisioning and governance needs, unlike the university’s legacy solution. Using Identity Manager, Radboud put an end to entitlement creep, and enabled real-time changes to user access settings, ensuring the right people had the right access to the right data and applications. The solution also addressed the university’s unique and complex user environment, enabling the management of users with multiple roles (i.e., an alumnus who is also a faculty member) by linking each user’s roles to one identity.

With Identity Manager, the university has cut the time required to provision a new user in half, and because processes that previously were done on a nightly basis can now be done on a near real-time basis, enrolment time has also has been reduced from two or three days down to one. Combined with the solution’s self-service options for users, these features have both improved user satisfaction and decreased IT workload.

With its provisioning and governance needs addressed, Radboud University now has the security it needs to protect itself from data leaks, and resultant damage to its reputation and financial bottom line. With Identity Manager, the university is set to effectively manage identity and access today, and can grow the solution to meet its needs in future years.