Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) Ukraine

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Mobile TeleSystems (MTS) Ukraine, one of the largest mobile telecom operators in the country with 20 million subscribers, recently resolved some troubling growth issues with an identity and access management solution based on Sun technology.

MTS, which today has more than 4,000 employees, was quickly adding staff in several locations in Ukraine to support its subscriber growth. The rapid increase in staff strained the system administrators' resources. Manually setting up user access privileges, changing them, or terminating them when employees left the company was slow and time-consuming

Password management with users was also an issue. With as many as eight to 20 passwords to remember, logging in to myriad applications had become a cumbersome process. Users were lax in creating secure or strong passwords.

MTS also had to ensure its systems complied with government privacy regulations for customer data. “It took one auditor a week just to determine if one system was in compliance, and we have about twelve different systems,” says Andriy Kotnyuk, information security officer, MTS Ukraine.

To deal with the time strain and the potential security risks, MTS sought Sun's help. The telecom provider relies on a mix of server hardware and platforms, including Sun Fire E25K, Sun Fire E6900, Sun Fire V245, and Sun Fire V890 servers, and the Solaris 10 Operating System. “We have had a good relationship with Sun for more than ten years,” says Kotnyuk. “And our parent company had recently deployed Sun's identity management solution and recommended it.”

MTS turned to Sun Professional Services and its system integrator and Sun partner, Kvazar-Micro, to deploy the solution, an integrated offering that includes Sun Java System Identity Manager and technology from Sun partner ActivIdentity. The automated solution offers comprehensive provisioning and auditing and uses smart cards to give users both single sign-on access to applications and physical access to company facilities.

The deployment, taking place in two phases, began in October 2007, after several months of review and planning. In Phase 1, MTS implemented Sun Identity Manager for all 4,000 users. ActivIdentity (which provides enterprise single sign on [SSO] with smart cards) was deployed for the first 50 users, providing them with SSO access to five different applications, including the HR management system, the ERP system SAP R\3, the corporate catalog Novell eDirectory, the Internet access proxy, and the corporate mail system Lotus Domino. Access to buildings is provided with the same smart card that employees use to log in to company applications thus integrated with badges. Phase 2, which will extend the solution to all MTS Ukraine employees, began in March 2008 and is scheduled for completion by early 2009.

Phase 1 of the implementation proved successful on many levels. IT administration time spent on account provisioning and de-provisioning was reduced by 50 percent. Compliance audits for one system were cut from one week to eight hours, and user login times were trimmed by 70 percent. In addition, MTS has gained peace of mind, knowing its systems and data are more secure. “This solution has benefited everyone,” says Kotnyuk. “That includes our IT staff, our employees, and—through increased data security—our customers, as well.”