Texas School District chooses Novell Nsure to Manage Student Data

(2005-01-30)

The North East Independent School District spans approximately 140 square miles in the north central and northeast sectors of Bexar County, Texas. The district has 58,000 students and 8,000 faculty located in more than 55 locations.

The North East Independent School District (ISD) stores user data primarily on a mainframe, as well as in multiple applications that span departments. Updating user data across the district’s systems was a cumbersome and manually intensive process for a small IT staff. Providing students with network access was especially time-consuming at the start of each new school year.

In addition, students and teachers often had to remember multiple user names and passwords and became increasingly frustrated with login problems. The number of students in the district was growing, while the IT staff was not. As a result, the district began searching for a comprehensive identity management solution to keep pace with rapid growth.

North East ISD needed an identity management solution for its diverse environment of NetWare, Microsoft Windows NT and UNIX servers. The district researched several options before selecting a Novell Nsure solution consisting of Novell eDirectory and Novell Nsure Identity Manager.

"Novell Nsure was the most flexible identity management solution out there," said Steve Young, assistant director of North East ISD. "We wanted to get the biggest bang for our buck with the ability to integrate Active Directory, legacy systems and a host of home-grown Web applications."

Novell consulting assessed the district’s systems and data and created a plan for a full-fledged identity management solution, specific to the district’s needs. In a few months, consultants worked with North East ISD to establish a centralized directory for all its schools and departments with Novell eDirectory. The district will use Novell Nsure Identity Manager to synchronize user data among applications, eliminating the need for manual updating.

"Working with Novell consulting was fabulous," said Young. "They were extremely thorough in their project planning and prevented us from making key mistakes. We learned a lot while working with top-notch people."

The Novell Nsure solution has already helped reduce user administration time. In the past, the IT staff had to recreate thousands of user accounts at the start of each new school year and the entire IT team would spend a week providing everyone with network access. Now when the district adds new student information to the mainframe registration system, the student automatically receives network access. Likewise, when a student leaves the district, the IT staff can automatically delete network access to safeguard security.

A comprehensive identity management solution makes it easy for the district’s IT staff to integrate new applications. The district recently rolled out an instant messaging product in no time, without the need to create additional user names and passwords.


"Everyone in the district is looking for ways to automate processes with technology," said Young. "But each new application comes with unique user data repositories, so our user administration problems were only going to get worse. Novell Nsure helps us keep pace with rapid growth and make quick use of new technology."

Streamlined identity management will reduce the number of passwords for students and staff to remember, which will reduce user frustration and decrease password-related helpdesk calls.

With an identity management solution in place, the district plans to use Novell ZENworks for desktop management. In the past, the small IT team might spend weeks installing a new application by visiting each workstation. ZENworks will allow the team to automatically install applications across the district from a central location.

The policy management features in ZENworks will also allow the district to standardize workstations and prevent students from disrupting desktops by changing icons or downloading extraneous applications.

"One of the biggest benefits of ZENworks will be the ability to control the computers in our student labs," said Young. "When students can turn on the machines and they all look the same, we’ve created a much better learning environment and can give the teachers more time to teach."

By using a Novell Nsure solution to automate identity management, North East ISD has eliminated 200 hours of manual user administration at the beginning of each school year. The IT staff can give students and staff fast access to the applications they need and has significantly reduced the number of password-related helpdesk calls.

Moving forward, Novell ZENworks will allow the district to standardize workstations and significantly reduce travel time and costs for its IT staff, allowing the small team to concentrate on keeping its network up to date.

"We were swamped with the different applications we needed to support and could see a disaster on the horizon," said Young. "With Novell, we are not constantly playing catch up and can move toward our future plans."

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