Streamlining identity and access management with IAM DevOps at Bærum Municipality

Bærum Municipality needed to automate complex access management processes while ensuring continuous access to specialized IAM expertise. With Cloudworks IAM DevOps and OpenText NetIQ, the municipality automated role-based access and established a more flexible approach to developing and managing its IAM environment.

About Bærum Municipality

- Norway's fifth-largest municipality
- IAM for 12,000 employees & 17,500 students
- Located in Bærum, Norway

Bærum kommune

Complex and time-consuming access management

Bærum Municipality provides a wide range of public services, resulting in a complex access environment. The access required by a secondary school teacher, for example, differs significantly from that of a healthcare professional.

Managing these differences involved extensive manual administration, particularly when employees joined, changed roles, or left the organization. New employees could wait a long time before receiving the access they needed, while accounts and permissions had to be removed promptly when employees left.

Bærum Municipality wanted to automate as much of the identity lifecycle as possible while making the remaining processes more efficient.

Access to the right IAM expertise

The municipality also faced challenges securing sufficient Identity and Access Management (IAM) expertise through traditional consulting arrangements. It needed both immediate support for ongoing requirements and access to specialized expertise to support its longer-term IAM strategy.

A more flexible delivery model was needed to provide the right expertise when required while continuously adapting to changing priorities.

A flexible approach with Cloudworks IAM DevOps

Cloudworks IAM DevOps gives Bærum Municipality access to a multidisciplinary team of IAM specialists rather than relying on individual consultants for fixed periods.

The model breaks larger initiatives into smaller deliveries and short development cycles, allowing priorities to be continuously reviewed and adjusted.

For Bærum Municipality, this means working toward overall strategic goals while delivering in two-week cycles. Priorities can be adjusted as requirements change, enabling continuous improvements and faster delivery of value to users.

Automating role-based access with OpenText NetIQ

Using OpenText NetIQ, the IAM DevOps team implemented role-based access management based on information from HR systems and other data sources.

The onboarding process was reviewed from recruitment through to the employee's first day, identifying opportunities to automate access management as well as related workflows and communication.

Information such as an employee's role, workplace, and start date is used to automatically assign up to 80% of required access from day one.

Access-related onboarding can begin up to 60 days before an employee's start date, giving managers more time to complete tasks that still require manual action. Automated notifications also provide managers and new employees with relevant information and status updates throughout the process.

For access that cannot be automatically assigned, employees can request what they need through a self-service portal with defined approval workflows. This places access decisions with the appropriate managers rather than relying on IT to determine which permissions individual employees require.

With Cloudworks IAM DevOps, we combine flexible and continuous development with the stability and specialized expertise needed to manage our IAM environment effectively.

Jan Henrik H. Olsen, former Head of IT Operations, Bærum Municipality

Continuous IAM development and management

Bærum Municipality's NetIQ environment integrates with a broad range of existing on-premises systems and can be adapted as the municipality's requirements evolve.

Managing a complex IAM environment requires continuous development, specialized expertise, and the ability to respond quickly when new requirements arise.

With Cloudworks IAM DevOps, Bærum Municipality has ongoing access to the expertise needed to develop and manage its IAM environment while maintaining stability and security.