The Good Samaritan Hospital in Lebanon, Pennsylvania, has boosted the security of its Microsoft Active Directory infrastructure with the deployment of a third party administration suite that sits on top of Microsoft’s management tools.
The decision to rollout NetIQ's Security Administration Suite was made after the healthcare provider had conducted a migration of 1,000 end users and more than 100 Windows servers to Windows 2000 and Active Directory.
The organisation said installation of the directory administration offering, and its incorporated Layered Security Architecture, had improved network security and helped to cut help desk costs by simplifying administration.
Guy Pierre, senior network administrator at Good Samaritan Hospital, said: "The Layered Security Architecture allowed me to delegate secure Windows account administration tasks to two help-desk staff, reserving the higher-level staff for more technical and pressing needs.
"This not only lowered staff costs but also increased security of the directory."
The Layered Security Architecture is designed to allow distributed directory access based on IT staff or help desk task needs, skill level and permissions. According to NetIQ, the system can provide more flexibility than single-layered access models by allowing user management beyond the Active Directory topology, providing offline policy management and enabling integrated provisioning and identity management.
"I am certain we have seen greater returns on our Active Directory investments," added Pierre.
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