Deutsche Telekom successfully relies on intension to implement centralised identity and access management (IAM). With CIAM and iDome as a basis, the company was able to centralise and automate its identity and access management processes – and thus ensure secure access to information, applications and systems for its employees.
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Secure access for the right identity at the right time
Companies above a certain size must clearly define authorisations and roles for users and applications. This is because, among many other advantages, it serves the purpose of being able to be audited centrally. This contrasts with heterogeneous IT environments in which access is set up decentrally. These accesses are often unnecessary, as they can cause costs in administration and, in the worst case, considerable security risks.
Deutsche Telekom IT GmbH centralises identity management
Deutsche Telekom began centralising its identity and account management at an early stage. While many companies at that time concentrated on meta-directories and central identity and access management was not yet widespread, T-Systems created a “Corporate Identity and Account Management System”, CIAM for short, for Deutsche Telekom. The requirements for the system were driven by both security and compliance. In the course of time, several decentralised isolated solutions were replaced by CIAM on behalf of central governance via tools and processes.
Today, with CIAM, Deutsche Telekom has a solution with which identity and access management is centralised and largely automated throughout the group. T-Systems implemented the requirements for this in two phases: In the first stage, the company realised a central identity and account management – based on iDome from intension. This was because this system was able to significantly increase the data quality of numerous delivery systems (HR, FC and master data delivery systems). A central administration of all identities in the group was now given.
Secure workflows
This enabled T-Systems to support many specialised processes (ordering and approval workflows, employee surveys, support for chat and conference systems, single sign-on) in the group. In a second stage, the company enabled the central allocation of all access authorisations with a self-developed access management module. Due to the good experience, T-Systems again decided to use intension’s products as the basis for the access management module.
Today, with CIAM, Deutsche Telekom has a modern tool that serves all IAM requirements of an international group. In addition, it offers the flexibility to map specific requirements of industries or companies.
“The strengths of intension are the high flexibility of the product in heterogeneous environments as well as the competent support of the manufacturer in our development and integration projects. New customer requirements are quickly integrated into the product by intension. At the same time, T-Systems is able to develop or adapt customer-specific modules itself through the product’s own language.”
Markus Paulmann, Deutsche Telekom IT GmbH
Next steps
Deutsche Telekom will continue to rely on iDome in the future, according to Mr Paulmann:
“The migration to the new iDome version is imminent. We expect an increase in overall performance, optimised deployment processes and a variety of enhancements in system monitoring, which is very important for us.
As long as CIAM works stably and reliably, the access of 150,000 employees to the application landscape of Deutsche Telekom is guaranteed. No matter whether in the call centre, in the technician’s office, in the data centre or in the office: once logged on to CIAM, each employee receives exactly the access he or she needs for his or her work.
T-Systems will continue to rely on iDome – together with intension we are successful. The experts from T-Systems and intension work hand in hand on projects and operational issues. Team spirit and the common will to succeed are the key to mastering great challenges together.”
