New York City Transit Boosts Network Security, Streamlines Information Access with Novell Identity Manager

North America's largest transportation agency, New York City Transit, has turned to Novell for improved security and management of its identity infrastructure and network access. With the world's largest fleet of subway cars and public buses, NYC Transit transports more than 7 million people each day. NYC Transit is using Novell® identity and Security solutions to centralize and automate its identity infrastructure for 49,000 staff members across 500 locations, ensuring timely and secure employee access to network resources.

As NYC Transit is transitioning its manual train control system to a computerized environment, it required a solution that would ensure its large number of distributed employees and contractors could quickly and securely access network applications and buildings. Revoking network and building access for terminated employees was also time consuming and posed security risks. In addition, the agency maintains confidential personnel data on its large workforce and manages benefits information for 36,000 retirees and their spouses. NYC Transit also needed a solution that would work across a mixed operating environment consisting of Novell Open Enterprise Server, Microsoft Windows*, UNIX* and a variety of mainframe and mid-range servers.

NYC Transit selected a Novell identity and Security solution consisting of Novell Identity Manager and Novell Access Manager™ to automatically synchronize user identities across multiple access systems and operating platforms. Employees and contractors have role-based access to applications and buildings, based on authoritative user data. The agency has been able to reduce time spent on user provisioning by 60 percent and can establish new user accounts in a few hours, rather than a few weeks. With centralized identity management, the IT staff can provide users with a single ID and password to access applications, minimizing the time spent on password technical support. For its 36,000 retirees, NYC Transit provides VPN access to its network and uses Novell SecureLogin to provide secure, single sign-on access, drastically reducing the administrative costs of managing the agency’s benefits program.

"More than 2 billion commuters rely on New York Transit each year, thus it is essential that the agency not only operates efficiently but is protected against potential security risks," said Jim Ebzery, senior vice president of Identity and Security at Novell. "With Novell, NYC Transit has a robust solution for providing timely and secure employee access to network assets, ensuring the efficiency of the transportation system. Our solution also ensures that access can be immediately revoked when employees leave the organization, safeguarding the security of NYC Transit's technology network, as well as access to its 1,500 critical train control rooms."