Is That Really You Accessing IT Services?
One of the greatest challenges in IT today is providing the right access to the right information for the right people (or machines!) at the right time.
The Identity and Access Management (IAM) Strategy Project, chartered earlier this year by the IT Architecture and Infrastructure Committee, is tasked with doing just that by developing a roadmap for implementing a full-featured set of Identity and Access Management tools for the University. The current Electronic Identity (EID)-based IAM infrastructure, developed in the 1990s and significantly enhanced since, is just not flexible enough to meet the rapidly changing needs of the campus community and the increasing complexity in technology, including security and mobility considerations. It’s clearly time to refresh UT Austin’s approach to identity and access management and take advantage of more advanced information technologies.
Currently, the project team is in the process of identifying key campus IAM business requirements and drivers, researching IAM solutions and best practices, and mapping out the desired future state for IAM at the University. Prior to Thanksgiving break, the team members—in conjunction with an outside consulting firm, Identropy—conducted a series of stakeholder interview sessions. The information and feedback gathered from these sessions will play a crucial role in developing and leveraging the centralized IAM infrastructure so that we can keep pace with the needs of our students, faculty and staff. The scope of the effort includes understanding and addressing the needs of researchers at UT Austin--and from other entities around the globe--authorized to use our world-class digital assets, such as the High Performance Computer systems at the Texas Advanced Computing Center.
Once developed, the IAM roadmap will include policies, processes and technology for managing digital information for individuals and entities such as organizations and applications/systems. The roadmap will also address the challenge of providing greater security for the University’s digital assets and computer systems as the campus embraces an ever expanding range of online services.
