NEC Philips Unified Solutions: City Of Sunderland College Turns To Nec Philips For Identity Management Project

Nov 19, 2008 (M2 PRESSWIRE via COMTEX) -- NOVL | Quote | Chart | News | PowerRating -- City of Sunderland College, one of the largest further education and sixth form colleges in the country, has partnered with NEC Philips Unified Solutions to implement a new Identity Management solution, utilising Novell Identity Management technology. The solution, which synchronises data from a mixed Microsoft and Novell infrastructure, will authenticate and manage staff and student access across the College's five campuses spread throughout Sunderland.

Sunderland image 1_Nov 08With over 3,000 desktops and 15,000 full and part-time students at City of Sunderland College, all accessing the network on a daily basis, it was clear that if the college was to continue to provide the speed and level of service required for staff and students, it needed to streamline its provisioning of user identities and accounts.

As Dave Ritchie, IT services manager explains, "The College has traditionally worked on a combination of different technology platforms for staff and students, which has added an element of complexity to the identity and access management process. As we continue to grow we realised that we needed to streamline our Identity Management activities in order to improve communications and accessibility without compromising security.

Dave continues, "The solution which was proposed and deployed by NEC Philips, is a single identity management vault which synchronises information from the Microsoft Active Directory and the Novell eDirectory. The system is capable of storing the details of over 30,000 individual identity accounts and because it is all in a single environment, we will be able to provision students and staff accounts quicker, providing them with faster access to the relevant core systems and applications, as well as being able to roll out new services quickly and easily in the future."

Work Stations at Sunderland College

Continuing Dave explains, "In addition to the provisioning of accounts, the new solution simplifies the process of disabling accounts when people leave, reducing the threat of security breaches of our infrastructure. The College also has to retain information on students' accounts for up to two years after they have finished their courses, so information cannot be deleted. However, it is important that students that leave us have their accounts disabled."

Speaking about the project, Dave states, "We knew that the implementation process was going to be technically complicated which is why we looked for a technology supplier that had both Microsoft and Novell capabilities and credentials. NEC Philips met these criteria and could also demonstrate a strong track record in Identity Management systems. At every stage of the implementation process NEC Philips gave us confidence that they were in complete control of the project and were on schedule to meet our implementation timeframes. Critically, the system was rolled out with minimal disruption to our day-to-day operations."

Dave concludes, "This project has been a complete success and as a result NEC Philips will be our first choice when we start our next stage of IT development, which will focus on extending the functionality of our Identity Management system further across the organisation."

High- res photography is available on request

About NEC Philips Unified Solutions

NEC Philips Unified Solutions (NEC Philips) is a provider of secure enterprise IT and communications solutions, specialising in the deployment of unified communication solutions which combine the best in voice, data, mobile, video and IT communications. NEC Philips engages directly withmedium and large enterprises, in both the public and private sectors, providing them with customised productivity solutions integrated tightly into business processes.

NEC Philips designs solutions that combine a range of leading technologies from both the NEC stable and other credible and recognized industry vendors. These solutions consist of infrastructure and application components, wrapped with value added services to deliver a range of IT and communication solutions aimed at transforming enterprise collaboration.

Designed to reduce costs and environmental effects, the infrastructure components combine best-of-breed market technologies in a secure and reliable environment to underpin enterprise IT and communications activities. Infrastructure components incorporate software, IT, voice and data elements, including virtualization, security, identity management, converged networks, storage and wireless solutions.

The application components offer a range of business and end-user solutions focused on improving productivity and efficiency through enhanced collaboration. They incorporate routing applications, mobility, conferencing, presence management, messaging and other user-centric solutions using Microsoft and other technologies.

Maximising potential is the focus of the NEC Philips value added services, which include scoping, assessment, solution design, optimisation, configuration, integration, hosting and managed services. The company has a long and proven track record in the provision of enterprise solutions, systems integration, design services and ongoing support services to a network of enterprise customers across the UK.

CONTACT: Ian Guest, NEC Philips Unified Solutions Tel: +44 (0)1223 468 777 Fax: +44 (0)1223 468 340 e-mail: ian.guest@nec-philips.co.uk Clare Granville / Kieran Kent, The itpr Partnership Tel: +44 (0)1932 578 800 Fax: +44 (0)1932 578 801 e-mail: clareg@itpr.co.uk

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