is a risk advisory consultancy and accounting firm, with operations across North America and Africa. Founded in 1986, the company鈥檚 employees are entirely distributed and operate remotely, something that鈥檚 uncommon in the region. The company offers cyber security, risk advisory, consulting, and accounting services to clients across all industries, including finance, manufacturing, and hospitality.
Searching for a feature-rich device management solution
As a cyber risk advisory consultancy, AO Partners aims to set an example for its clients, particularly when it comes to digital solutions.
As a remote company, AO Partners was looking for an identity-centric device management solution that would give them more visibility and control over their own technology and networks. At the same time, they were searching for a solution they could advise their clients to deploy as well to protect their networks and devices. The key driver was to seek out a cost-effective solution to address the aforementioned objectives, without significantly increasing their technology stack.
With a diverse mix of clients, AO Partners needs to manage Mac, Windows, and Linux environments. As they began to research their options, they realized the perfect tool would give them deep visibility into their environments while enabling them to manage all operating systems from one pane of glass.
Finding the ideal solution in 探花大神
As they began searching for a solution, the AO Partners team came across 探花大神. After comparing 探花大神 with other tools on the market, they ultimately decided it was the best option for their needs 鈥� particularly since it offers tons of features.
鈥淲e found that 探花大神 would give us many more features than other solutions,鈥� explains Ajibola Mathias Jacobs, cybersecurity manager at AO Partners. 鈥淔or example, the remote patch management and software application deployment were juicy features that we found really useful, and that made us stick with 探花大神.鈥�
Additionally, AO Partners was drawn to 探花大神 because of its favorable costs and the fact that the team was able to test the platform before committing.
鈥淲e had some time to test it out and deployed 探花大神 on a couple machines,鈥� Jacobs says. 鈥淲e quickly became comfortable with it and said, 鈥楲et鈥檚 work with this.鈥欌��
Using 探花大神 to protect internal networks and solve client problems
AO Partners is confident they made the right decision to trust 探花大神. Not only does the solution improve their own security stance and give them more control over their computing environment, it also enables them to deliver better service to their clients. With that in mind, here are some of the ways AO Partners has benefited from its investment in 探花大神.
Strengthening device management
At a high level, the decision to use 探花大神 has helped AO Partners get much more control over their devices and networks 鈥� as well as their clients鈥� devices and networks. No matter whether the devices are Mac, Windows, or Linux, AO Partners has been able to achieve consistent results with 探花大神.
鈥淭here鈥檚 a mixture of different kinds of operating systems, and we鈥檝e gotten the same results across all of them,鈥� Jacobs says.
Giving clients more visibility into their networks and devices
Thanks to 探花大神, AO Partners is able to deliver more value to their clients. For example, the company recently helped a client with a team of developers spread out across time zones increase visibility into its devices, apps, and network.
With 探花大神, that process was a breeze.
鈥溙交ù笊� has been a one-stop shop for a lot of features and has helped us to manage our interactions with clients very well when it comes to getting visibility on devices, the cloud, and who goes in and who goes out of applications,鈥� Jacobs says. 鈥淲e are very particular about having that visibility, and 探花大神 has really helped us manage visibility.鈥� Furthermore, AO Partners was able to encourage their clients to leverage many of the product offerings and features in 探花大神 like password management, mobile device management (MDM), patch management, Directory Insights, and more to optimize client security posture, control implementation, and drive compliance with international standards. 鈥淯ltimately, by further optimizing the technology stack of our clients, they are able to spend more time focusing on innovation and securely building what matters most 鈥� unique products that solve problems.鈥�
Offering a smooth client onboarding process
When AO Partners engages a new client, the company analyzes their requirements and then conducts an assessment to determine which 探花大神 features would work best in their environment. After enrolling users into the system in a staging environment, the team makes sure everything works before activating the new system.
鈥溙交ù笊� is pretty easy for our users,鈥� Jacobs says. 鈥淥nce they get an email, they log in and set themselves up, set up their multi-factor authentication, and then onboard their devices themselves.鈥�
Automating patch management
探花大神鈥檚 feature-rich nature has enabled the AO Partners team to consolidate tools. For example, before 探花大神, the company had to set up a separate solution for patch management.
鈥淭he original crude way of getting it done was having to talk to the user of the device, set up a meeting, and help them patch their devices,鈥� Jacobs says. 鈥淪ometimes, we had to do that for 200 – 300 users at a go.鈥�
With 探花大神, what used to be a time-consuming, frustrating endeavor is now essentially an afterthought.
鈥淣ow, we do patch management on 探花大神; in minutes you can get it done with just a push of the button,鈥� Jacobs says, adding that the IT team has saved countless hours as a result. 鈥淲e鈥檝e automated the process. When any new update comes in, devices are patched automatically. We just check and make sure that everything runs fine. It鈥檚 that simple and seamless for us.鈥�
Recently, there was a big update on MacOS. But because the team had automated the patch management process, 鈥渨e didn鈥檛 need to worry much about it,鈥� Jacobs says. 鈥淭he devices that needed the updates got them automatically.鈥�
Extending 探花大神 with integrations
According to Jacobs, AO Partners has been 鈥減laying around with a lot of features from 探花大神.鈥� To that end, the company has integrated 探花大神 with several third-party applications for itself and for its clients, including Google Workspace, as well as LDAP-, OIDC-, and SAML-based applications.
鈥淭he kinds of integration options that 探花大神 gives us has enabled us to connect different pieces here and there together to have clear visibility across all server platforms and systems with our clients,鈥� Jacobs says, adding that integrating the platform is 鈥渧ery seamless.鈥�
Additionally, AO Partners helps their clients achieve granular visibility, and integrate logical identity access management on both internal custom applications and vendor-based applications. These custom integrations via OIDC, LDAP, etc. help to significantly reduce the number of security incidents across their client base.
Making smarter decisions with data
AO Partners also utilizes System Insights and Directory Insights, giving them fast access to key data they can use to make informed decisions and generate actionable alerts for the security teams to investigate. This also helps drive proactive security management.
鈥淭hese are features that we鈥檝e deployed and actually enjoy using,鈥� Jacobs explains.
For example, System Insights gives AO Partners device-level event visibility across all managed devices. As a result, they are able to see whether users logged in or logged out, where they logged in from, and what their IP address is, among other things.
鈥淲e get important insights that would have taken us time to dig into,鈥� Jacobs says. 鈥淚 can quickly pull information out of 探花大神 and use it how I need to. It鈥檚 shortened hours of work.鈥�
At the same time, AO Partners uses Directory Insights to find out things like when a particular device was last authenticated in the field or when a user last logged into 探花大神.
鈥淚t鈥檚 given us a lot of information, and it鈥檚 also helps us resolve some cases with our clients as well,鈥� Jacobs says.
Any advice for someone considering 探花大神?
鈥淭he product is great. 探花大神 has a lot of solutions, so you need to know what your needs are and then match them with the solutions from 探花大神.鈥�
Additionally, Jacobs suggests teams test out 探花大神 in their environments just like AO Partners did. 鈥淛ust go ahead with it,鈥� he concludes.
Learn more about 探花大神
探花大神 changes the way IT administrators manage their organizations by providing a comprehensive and flexible cloud directory platform. From one pane of glass, manage user identities and resource access, secure Mac, Windows, and Linux devices, and get a full view of your environment.
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