An MSP Lead Technician鈥檚 Perspective on Integrating their Product Stack with 探花大神
Introduction
is a 探花大神 Partner with the imperative to shift their client organizations to the cloud for rapid onboarding, centralized management, and enhanced cloud security. As described in the accompanying business-focused case study with CEO, Brett Ramberg, Altitude Integrations is a cloud-forward managed service provider (MSP) rising to meet the needs of local and global organizations scaling their business. Beyond searching for a cloud-based solution with rapid onboarding capabilities and minimal maintenance, Altitude Integrations needed to find the right cross-platform tool that would integrate effectively with their product 鈥榮tack鈥�. Jan Kalkus, Altitude Integration鈥檚 Lead Technician, was kind enough to sit down with us and detail how integrating with 探花大神 has improved their technical process for client management.
- Organization: Altitude Integrations
- Size: 11 employees; approx. 125 clients
- Location: HQ in Boulder, CO, USA
- Problem: Altitude Integrations needed to replace Active Directory and transform their business model from break-fix to cloud-forward integrators.
- Goal: Altitude Integrations is determined to revamp their product stack and move all clients to the cloud.
Lead Technician
Background
鈥淚 am the lead technician at Altitude Integrations, so I look into all of our technology options and offerings, as well as planning our roadmap,鈥� Jan said. 鈥淲e like to focus on cloud-based productivity suites, so we do a lot with G Suite, email, documents, and we focus on business continuity, transformations, and technology integrations.鈥�
As described in the accompanying business case study with CEO and Owner, Brett Ramberg, Altitude Integrations has recently transformed their business model and is now focusing entirely on providing cloud-based services and being a cloud-forward integrator.
鈥淲e focus on a lot of cloud-based services because they scale well, they don鈥檛 require much鈥攊f any鈥攐n-premises resources, and they鈥檙e very resilient towards any sort of outage or disruption in service.鈥�
The Challenge
Being based out of the Boulder area, Altitude Integration鈥檚 local clientele is built around startups looking to onboard employees as fast as possible, as well as large organizations that look easily scalable and manageable with identity and access management solutions.
鈥淲e initially looked into 探花大神 because our clients were starting small but they had plans to grow very quickly. Whether it was one location, or multiple sites around the world, our clients were looking to scale,鈥� Jan said.
Rapid onboarding is really just the tip of the iceberg for Altitude Integration鈥檚 up-and-coming client organizations. As these clients double and triple in size, other crucial internal processes, like password management and basic security, can get left by the wayside.
鈥淪ome of the biggest challenges we鈥檙e facing are security and, for lack of a better word, accountability. We see all sorts of problems arise when people try to rename or reuse accounts or credentials.鈥�
Small organizations growing at high speeds tend to struggle with the traditional, on-prem maintenance requirements of Active Directory. Altitude Integrations saw this firsthand, and soon realized there had to be a better way. Not just for their clients, but for their own business as well.
鈥淲e found that using typical, traditional hardware just didn鈥檛 scale well. Installing a server everywhere required a lot of man hours to maintain, and we didn鈥檛 want to run all of the infrastructure in-house in order to withstand outages,鈥� Jan explained. 鈥淲e needed something that was highly scalable and highly available.鈥�
The Solution
Comprehensive Flexibility
Once Altitude Integrations made up their minds that the cloud was the only true way to enable their clients to scale effectively, they then took the time to survey the best options for integrating cloud-based services into their product stack. Many services were able to check off some of the boxes, but only 探花大神 could provide everything Altitude Integrations needed to fully migrate their clients to the cloud.
“So we certainly looked at competing services, and there were plenty of solutions that offered part of what we needed, but there wasn鈥檛 a competitor that could offer all of the features and services that 探花大神 did with one solution. In the end, that鈥檚 what sold us on 探花大神.”
Jan went on to explain that because 探花大神 is protocol-driven, Partners like Altitude Integrations are free to select technologies of their choice for integration. As a result, Altitude Integration鈥檚 product stack, offerings, and business are more flexible, and can support a wider range of customer needs.
鈥淥ne reason I love 探花大神 is that it supports many standard protocols, like SAML, RADIUS, and LDAP, and supports our specific vendor partnerships. That鈥檚 been huge for us because it doesn鈥檛 lock us in,鈥� Jan said. 鈥淚f we find a partner that does something better than another, we can switch and still use 探花大神 for our identity and access management. With 探花大神, we have more freedom, and so do our clients.鈥�
Ease of Use
Jan discovered that not only was 探花大神 more flexible than the alternatives they surveyed, but 探花大神 was also easier to use and faster to operate.
“Working with 探花大神 as opposed to the alternatives is just quicker and simpler. I can log in with my credentials, I can set policies for one machine, one group, or the whole company, and I don鈥檛 have to wait or retry things.”
Jan continued, 鈥淔or example, when we鈥檙e deploying 探花大神 with a lot of sites, we鈥檒l use a software distribution tool that allows us to set up a package that takes care of deploying the 探花大神 agent, and everything on the backend. The beautiful thing is I can accomplish this anywhere. I could be in the office, at home, or I could even be out on a bike ride somewhere and, all I have to do is just flip the necessary switch.鈥�
As stated previously, finding a solution that secured access to resources and limited risk for the end user was a crucial element for Altitude Integrations to manage their clients. Thankfully, 探花大神鈥檚 single sign-on (SSO) capability and cloud-based access were able to meet their needs and more.
鈥淭he biggest improvement for us and our clients is providing them with one set of credentials that they have to remember. They don鈥檛 have to keep track of all sorts of different accounts and passwords,鈥� Jan said. 鈥淎lso, our clients like the fact that 探花大神 is cloud-based. So, as long as they have an internet connection, our clients can access all of the services 探花大神 provides,鈥� Jan said.
Replacing Active Directory
While Active Directory has been a mainstay of IT organizations for the past 20 years, MSPs and their client organizations alike are doing everything they can to move past it鈥檚 limitations in the modern era. Altitude Integrations needed to find the right tool to make this possible, and 探花大神 was able to provide them with an effective migration and identity management solution.
鈥淎 huge piece of 探花大神鈥檚 appeal to MSPs is the software agent that lives locally on the machine. We have one client that always had problems purchasing the right thing or justifying the purchase. For instance, getting the right Windows license for their Active Directory environment was always a problem鈥攂ut now, it鈥檚 a non-issue,鈥� Jan said. 鈥淣ow, they can get devices that are non-Windows because they can just use the software agent and get the same functionality. In our opinion, 探花大神 works even better because it can manage systems regardless of where they are. Users can take their systems home, and 探花大神 still has control over them. You couldn鈥檛 do that as easily with Active Directory.鈥�
Jan further expanded on how 探花大神 has helped Altitude Integrations overcome roadblocks with Active Directory, and explained how integrating with Macs has never been easier with 探花大神鈥檚 software agent.
鈥淔ortunately, all of the maintenance you鈥檇 have to take care of with Active Directory or building your own LDAP server is taken care of with 探花大神. Also, it鈥檚 much easier to make changes and add any sort of machine,鈥� Jan explained. 鈥淚n the past, managing Macs with Active Directory was always a challenge, and sometimes it didn鈥檛 even work; but now, we don鈥檛 have to worry about that because of 探花大神鈥檚 cross-platform support. We can install the agent on a Mac and the agent handles all of the complicated pieces like permissions and changing keychains.鈥�
G Suite Integration
Another key feature of 探花大神鈥檚 Directory-as-a-Service platform that empowered Altitude Integrations to streamline client management was the deep integration capability with productivity suites, such as G Suite and Office 365.
鈥淲e love that 探花大神 seamlessly hooks into G Suite so that we can provision and deprovision users. We also do a lot of work with Cisco Meraki hardware and their enterprise system management, which, again, all ties into 探花大神. We can install a single software agent, and through that we can add users, remove users, set permissions, and even set up per-user access to the networking infrastructure.鈥�
The Result
Over the course of these first few months, Jan has already started to see some major improvements in terms of Altitude Integration鈥檚 operational efficiency and ability to quickly turnaround client requests. From remote management to rapid onboarding and offboarding, 探花大神 is giving Altitude Integrations the tools needed for full-scale, cloud-based client management.
“探花大神鈥檚 way more efficient than how we鈥檝e had to work with other tools in the past.”
Jan continued, 鈥淲e used to have to take hours or days to get something turned around, and now I can do the same thing within minutes. So it鈥檚 been huge for me鈥擨 don鈥檛 have to go onsite, I can do it all from my office, so it鈥檚 been instrumental in getting the most out of our time.鈥�
Onboarding is one area of client management that required extra effort in the past, and remains an active process for Altitude Integration鈥檚 clientele of startup organizations. Since Altitude Integrations has been using 探花大神, however, onboarding has been converted from a pain point to a point of pride.
鈥淢ost of the client feedback has been centered around how much quicker and easier it is to onboard a new hire. As long as the new hire has an email account, I can onboard them to any of the systems that are integrated with 探花大神,鈥� Jan said. 鈥淭he client just has to tell their new hire to check their email and follow the instructions. After that, the new hire can log on to the machines that they need to and access network resources. That鈥檚 been the biggest feedback we鈥檝e had, adding and even removing users has become quicker and simpler for us and for the client.鈥�
Being on-call for emergencies and fixing faulty servers used to be the norm for MSP technicians like Jan. But now with 探花大神 at the center of their product stack, Jan is seeing greater client stability firsthand and receiving positive feedback from a range of grateful clients.
鈥淭he main priority for us is building resilient infrastructure for our clients, and 探花大神 let鈥檚 us do that. We don鈥檛 have to worry about an update or the internet going down,鈥� Jan said. 鈥溙交ù笊� is very scalable and accessible, and that鈥檚 important to the client. If we don鈥檛 have to bog clients down with the details, they鈥檙e happier, because they don鈥檛 have to worry about interruption to their business or IT service.鈥�
More Info
Ready to get started as a partner? Apply聽here.
Still need a bit more info? Get an overview at聽our Partners page or try a free demo.