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In fact, it’s an evolution that’s being driven by several underlying forces, and in 2005, we’ll see these forces come to bear as governments and industry invest heavily in cutting-edge card programs that will enable them maximum security while leveraging the enormous potential of today’s smart-card technology. The goal: create a single credential designed to grant access to both physical locations and IT applications.

Here’s where to look to see that we’re making major strides in deploying converged solutions in 2005:

Federal government—

With the signing of Homeland Security Presidential Directive 12 on August 27, which mandated that:

“…the heads of executive departments and agencies shall, to the maximum extent practicable, require the use of identification by Federal employees and contractors that meets the Standard in gaining physical access to Federally controlled facilities and logical access to Federally controlled information systems …”

The Federal government has already put in motion a number of efforts with wide-ranging impact.

In 2005, we’ll see an expansion of the Department of Defense Common Access Card initiative, which covers more than four million employees worldwide, and several of the other agencies and departments will move from trials to roll out for their converged card-based programs. State and local governments—

As part of an ongoing effort to identify potential vulnerabilities, there will be a closer look taken at the master key systems that secure much of the traffic, telecommunications and utility infrastructure in cities and towns throughout the country. Some of the most innovative and high-profile municipalities will begin to look at systems that give them the same basic control and logging that is expected of traditional, centrally-managed systems.

Education—

Several factors will combine to launch trials and early deployments on college campuses, including the turnover in the population and the administrative burden of card issuance, the need for physical security in a campus setting, and the requirements for security and record keeping concerning access to certain laboratories and materials.

Private industry—

Starting with government contractors, which are covered under this same presidential directive, private industry will evaluate the way in which their current access program meets this standard, and will make revisions necessary to bring their programs into compliance. Given the breadth of contractors, which range from defense contractors, to IT contractors, to contractors for basic services, compliance with this directive will be one of the key requirements of any new systems evaluated.

Transportation—

Spurred on by the Transportation Workers Identity Card (TWIC) program at the Federal level, which is expected to cover 12 million or more workers who need secure access to sensitive areas of the nation’s transportation system, airlines and others will begin to examine ways to deploy a converged solution in order to lower their costs while maintaining high security and complying with the various federal mandates.

Telecommunications—

As an important part of our critical national infrastructure, telecommunications providers face the daunting challenge of securing many far-flung facilities, while at the same time enabling employees and contractors working as installation and repair technicians to access most of the facilities at any time.

Similar to some of the other efforts in the private sector, in 2005 we’ll see the first trials from some of industry leading firms of converged solutions that enable them to control access to all locations, both wired and standalone, from one central system.

Behind all of this are economic and technical drivers that are making it cheaper to acquire and implement converged solutions, and the growing realization that a converged solution represents a significant step forward in lowering operating costs while at the same time increasing security in meaningful ways.

And by this time next year … By this time next year we’ll have seen that major steps were taken by organizations of all types and sizes to implement converged solutions.

Given the underlying forces, and what we’re seeing and hearing from our clients and partners, this is the inevitable result of hundreds of initiatives going on right now.

About the author: Phil Libin was founder and CEO of Engine 5, a leading Boston-based enterprise software development company acquired by Vignette Corporation in early 2000. At Vignette, Phil served as Principal Architect and Chief Technologist for Applications. Prior to Engine 5, Phil led a number of software consulting and technology projects at ATG, Xchange and EF.

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