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Syracuse University: Provisioning Delivers Secure Self Service
4/29/2003
Syracuse wanted to improve the students' experience by giving them a global user name and password that would allow them access to any appropriate system they needed, from anywhere at anytime. This required us to create a single source for authentication for our students, in the form of a single database of student information that could be used to provision the local directories already in use by different schools and departments across campus.
To accomplish these goals, we considered creating a homegrown solution, as well as several commercial offerings. After much research and consideration, Business Layers' eProvision Software was the most appropriate choice for Syracuse, as it was the best fit for our environment and the most cost-effective system for our specific needs.
Computing Resources
At Syracuse, we have about 35 organizational units maintaining directories on
platforms ranging from Unix to Windows NT to Novell NetWare. The Unix systems
use Sun Microsystems Inc.'s Sun ONE as their directory; the Novell systems use
Novell Inc.'s eDirectory and Windows NT relies on Microsoft Corp.'s Active Directory.
Our Syracuse team turned to eProvision to populate and update an enterprise
directory that serves as the authoritative source of user information. eProvision
then monitors the enterprise directory for changes and, as necessary, updates
the more than 35 distributed directories used by those applications. While the
provisioning tool is centralized, decision making is not; it's still up to the
owners of the local systems to provide the rules and policies that determine
how users are given access to computing resources.
The first local directories linked to eProvision were the Unix-based systems that serve between 32,000 and 34,000 user accounts. These systems provide user-focused services such as e-mail and on-line storage, as well as management of students' computing accounts. The next stage will involve the Novell systems, with about 15,000 users and then the Windows NT systems with 3,000 to 5,000 users. The number of user accounts is greater than our 15,000 full-time students because part-time students, outside researchers, faculty, and staff also have accounts, further complicated by individuals having multiple accounts on different systems.
Given the numerous and disparate data sources involved in this process, our team experienced some challenges in supplying the cleanest and most synched information to the overall provisioning system. We wanted to ensure that we would have a 360-degree view of the most accurate information for consistent provisioning throughout our distributed systems. This need was successfully addressed with a series of systematic data mergers and some manual coding.
While the primary focus is on the students, the school is also rolling out capabilities to faculty and staff. We don't expect scalability to be an issue. While the number of current and former user names in the enterprise directory could eventually grow to the millions at any one time, we'll only have 12,000 to 15,000 students actively maintaining their accounts through eProvision.
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