USi Drives Integration and Strengthens Security with Oracle Fusion Middleware

Company Streamlines Compliance with Oracle SOA Suite and Oracle Identity Management

REDWOOD SHORES, Calif. - USinternetworking, Inc. (USi), an AT&T company and a provider of managed enterprise software solutions, has created a Service-Oriented Architecture (SOA) to integrate its disparate applications and automate application provisioning throughout its enterprise with Oracle(r) Fusion Middleware.

As a premier provider of hosted and on-demand software solutions for Fortune 1000 companies, USi must consistently enhance the value and security of its services while driving down the cost of managing technology internally and for its clients. Using several components of Oracle Fusion Middleware, including Oracle Access Manager, Oracle Application Server 10g, Oracle BPEL Process Manager, Oracle Identity Manager, Oracle Internet Directory, Oracle JDeveloper 10g and Oracle Web Services Manager, USi developed an SOA that enabled it to significantly reduce costs by automating critical business processes and streamlining regulatory compliance while extending best practices around user provisioning and identity management to its clients.

USi developed an SOA to integrate and simplify user provisioning for its internal business applications that include Ariba and Oracle's PeopleSoft Enterprise applications. Prior to creating an SOA, provisioning users for each of the company's business applications was a complex manual process that required several steps and dedicated resources to manage. Using Oracle's SOA software, USi wrapped critical components of its applications' code to expose them as Web services and then created BPEL processes linking the Web services to automate the company's user provisioning and authentication process and streamline username logons. The result is a significant reduction in resources required to manage provisioning and a single sign-on model that enables employees to log in once but have secure, appropriate access to all of the applications they use.

"Oracle BPEL Process Manager is like workflow on steroids," said Mike Rulf, vice president, advanced engineering, USi. "It enabled us to move beyond the linear constraints of traditional workflow tools to build dynamic processes that are more closely aligned with our business needs and the requirements of our customers. Our use of Oracle Fusion Middleware has helped us lower costs and improve customer satisfaction."

If It's Good for the Goose...
After implementing its SOA internally, USi quickly realized the business value of extending the solution to its clients. As an application service provider offering managed enterprise solutions for Oracle, PeopleSoft, Siebel and other applications, USi helps manage user provisioning and authentication for thousands of users across multiple enterprises. Thus, the internal challenges facing USi were echoed and multiplied with its clients. Furthermore, in order to achieve compliance with the SAS 70 internal controls audit, USi had to provide auditors with proof that users were provisioned and deprovisioned correctly on each of the systems it hosts for its clients. Traditionally, the audit process required reams of paper documentation and took auditors several months to verify that the information was correct. With Oracle, the provisioning and deprovisioning processes are automatically tracked and presented in an easily understandable dashboard, which results in a considerable reduction in the time and money spent on completing the audit.

In addition to reducing resources required for audits, USi can deliver its Oracle-powered solution, from automated provisioning to single sign-on to its customers, which provides a tremendous competitive advantage for the company. "We can take the same wrappers we are using internally and expose those Web services to extend all of the security we've built out to our customers. It adds another layer of value to our service that no one else is offering," said Rulf.

USi is an AT&T company and a leading Application Service Provider. USi delivers application outsourcing, remote management, professional services, SaaS enablement, and eBusiness development and hosting services to more than 150 world-class organizations in over 30 countries. USi's SaaS enablement program gives Independent Software Vendors the immediate advantage of delivering their software to a larger client base through USi's hosted model.