The challenge
Back in 2010, DkIT needed to move from Live@Edu to Office 365. They wanted a cost-effective way of providing e-mail authentication without having the dependency on campus IT infrastructure. They were concerned about downtime issues from depending on a dedicated server for Office 365, as this is how students would be accessing all their emails.
The biggest challenge the client faced was finding a solution that could provide this service – the problem was that there was very little choice on the Irish market.
IAM Cloud is one the leading identity providers delivering Office 365 authentication in the cloud as a service. Having already worked with IAM Cloud on a smaller project, DkIT’s Senior Technical Officer, Ian Bell, had no hesitation in choosing this solution:
“The level of commitment and service provided to us in our previous experience with IAM Cloud made the decision easier, especially with the resources we could save by not having to run our own dedicated on-premises equipment.”
The solution and business benefits
Not only is Dundalk Institute of Technology using IAM Cloud for their authentication of Office 365, but as IAM Cloud is a full identity and access management platform, DkIT can now maximising the use of other features available in the platform. They are using IAM Cloud Smart Links to enable Single Sign-On for OneDrive and SharePoint as well as Office Pro Plus downloads.
DkIT needed to update their password policy, reducing the password expiration period. This resulted in an increase in users having to change their password, but using IAM Cloud’s Known Password Reset meant that this worked extremely well. Students and staff can change their password on and off campus. This resulted in a huge reduction in the burden on the IT Team, which usually had to deal with password problems. They also decided to roll out the IAM Cloud Self-Service Password Reset.
As Ian added at the time, “One additional feature we’ve used is TouchPoint, which allows us to communicate with staff and students via the login box, notifying them of important messages prior to them logging in.”
Dundalk Institute of Technology has been with IAM Cloud for nearly five years and in that time have been impressed with the level of service.
By using IAM Cloud, we have minimised staff and student downtime and we can carry out maintenance work on our on-premises infrastructure without affecting email accessibility. The IAM Cloud Support Team provide an excellent service. The response time is swift and any issues are always resolved very quickly. IAM Cloud has become more customer focused with a big improvement in communications.
Ian Bell, Senior Technical Officer, Computer Services
The future
The next phase for DkIT is to introduce Cloud Drive Mapper across the entire campus. They are currently evaluating Cloud Drive Mapper with a possible roll out in September to all the student PCs. The idea would be to replace the student’s on-premises home directory with their OneDrive but still look like they have access to their on-premises home directory, thus reducing storage requirements.
For DkIT, the biggest benefit of IAM Cloud is that once it’s set up, it takes little effort to maintain. The struggle with load balance that many organisations experience when trying to manage authentication themselves is no longer an issue.
