| Smart Card Infrastructure |
| Developing a smart card/federated identity infrastructure for a global financial services organization. |
| Business Issue |
| A common identity card and access badge was needed for employees of this globally-dispersed organization, so that employees would have physical access to company buildings along with strong network and system authentication. Regional offices needed the ability to issue and manage identity badges locally, while ensuring that the issued badges were trusted by the entire organization. |
| Edgile’s Solution |
| Edgile teamed with key representatives of the organization to develop a detailed set of requirements and conduct a product selection exercise. The system chosen was based around smart cards and a public key infrastructure for the organization. The Certificate Authority (CA) product selected was the Microsoft Certification Authority because of its tight integration with the company’s current Microsoft environment and cost considerations. For the smart card management system, Active Card’s card management system was selected due to its feature set and the use of standardized interfaces for integration with the Microsoft CA environment. |
| Edgile developed a business case for the proposed infrastructure based on hard costs and benefits. The business case analyzed the cost of current technology including the existing Certificate Authority (CA) and other two-factor authentication technologies. The low operating cost of the Microsoft CA, its tight integration into a number of the company’s current technologies, and the ability to leverage an upgrade cycle of the Microsoft environment allowed Edgile to make a very compelling business case for investment in the Smart Card and Federated Identity Infrastructure. |
| Edgile leveraged its partnership with Microsoft to develop a CA architecture that included a hierarchy that allowed regional organizations to implement the solution in a manner that best fit their needs, from a totally centrally managed environment to a regionally managed environment. This identity solution supported the current Active Directory domain model and provided a strategic plan that addressed both rollout of the environment and value-added functionality. Edgile continues to work with the client on implementing the production rollout. |
| Business Value |
| The client has a clear strategy and direction that is fully embraced by the organization based on hard dollar savings valuation. The solution set leverages investments in current technologies and standards, integrates and inter-operates well with other technologies to drive workflow and business efficiency, and is very cost-effective. The company is moving from a test environment to pilot and is being prepared for rollout with the next Microsoft upgrade cycle. |
