The City and County of San Francisco and the University of Colorado are two public sector organizations using cloud solutions to create a more secure, scalable environment. As these two public sector IT leaders have embraced cloud-based technologies to be able to implement innovative solutions and look to new applications, security remains the most important consideration. By using cloud-based technologies, agencies are able to deliver on the mission in a secure, scalable way without taxing already scarce resources. “Cloud can help agencies that don’t have the resources to protect themselves from the growing number of cybersecurity threats aimed at government,” said David Knox, Group Vice President, Solutions Engineering, Oracle Public Sector.
Agencies should look to cloud solutions that offer enhanced security and create a “single pane of glass” that mitigates the risk of data breaches and human error, shared Knox. “It allows you to understand the sensitivity of your data so that you can then apply the right level of security controls to protect it. This is the heart of security risk and compliance,” said Knox.
How did the City and County of San Francisco and the University of Colorado use cloud solutions to address secure mission delivery?
City and County of San Francisco
With over 50 departments, the City and County of San Francisco (CCSF) has a variety of functions and applications that are critical to data handling. With an array of sensitive information, CCSF needed to expand the identity and access management platform to include people and processes outside of the core financial and people management application. Managing this application stack was draining resources and as more users rely on remote access, CCSF decided to make the switch to the cloud.
Since centralizing their enterprise level on-premise Identity and Access Management capabilities, the time to integrate a new application has been reduced to a couple of days instead of nearly a month. Moreover, with a secure cloud platform, Multifactor Authentication (MFA) is now available for many devices, helping to ensure sensitive data stays secure. By moving to cloud-based technologies and leveraging adaptive authentication and MFA, they are now able to integrate SaaS and legacy applications quickly, service tickets have decreased, and the citizen experience has improved.
For the University of Colorado, identity management was an increasing burden with the Office of Information Technology overseeing technology decisions for both CU Denver and the Anschutz Medical campuses. With no centralized system for identity management functions such as authentication and single sign-on, an abundance of work was being created for the IT team. HIPAA compliance was also a concern for the medical campus and identity requirements were lacking. With more than 18 processes running at the college, meeting compliance and identity management requirements was daunting.
The University of Colorado Denver selected Oracle Identity and Access Management initially and has subsequently launched Oracle Identity Cloud Service to support all campuses in the University of Colorado system. With both systems working together, the university now has a modern identity platform helping them improve security and address compliance. For instance, the university was able to construct a standardized process for identity that reduced redundant work, met compliance, and reduced risk. Help desk calls were lowered by 90 percent and the IT staff was able to provision more than 300,000 centralized identities in real-time.
With cloud solutions, public sector organizations can bolster security, reduce workloads, and achieve compliance. “
Agencies have at their disposal new ways to better protect themselves from cyber threats. “We are putting locks on the door. Why wouldn’t you want to do that,” said Knox.
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