This e-commerce company builds personalized marketing and search solutions that hundreds of major corporate websites around the world rely on. Founded over a decade ago and headquartered in California, the remote-first company has a distributed team of 1,000 workers that includes employees, freelancers, contractors, vendors, and interns.
Seeking to simplify & streamline IT management
In 2022, Frank G. joined the e-commerce company as director IT. A veteran of the industry, he cut his teeth back in 1981 as a software developer, switching infrastructure management ahead of Y2K.
When he joined the company, the IT footprint was a bit cluttered.
鈥淚 did walk into an interesting situation,鈥� Frank says with a laugh. 鈥淲e had Okta, Jamf, Active Directory, you name it. We were all over the place.鈥�
The cacophonic nature of the company鈥檚 IT infrastructure can be attributed to the fact that the organization acquired a couple of businesses over the years to continue fueling its growth.
鈥淚 was trying to simplify our environment,鈥� Frank continues. 鈥淚 didn鈥檛 want to use Okta for this and Jamf for that, for example.鈥�
Replacing Okta & Active Directory with 探花大神 out of the gate
Before Frank came on board, the decision to use 探花大神 had already been made. The team was in the process of migrating off of Okta as the first move with 探花大神, and then Frank decided to ditch Active Directory next.
鈥淚 was an Active Directory person for most of my career in infrastructure,鈥� Frank says. 鈥淎nd the way we were using Active Directory was just a disaster. Once we disconnected from Okta, we tried to move all of the applications that we鈥檙e using LDAP away from Active Directory and move them towards 探花大神.鈥�
The initial projects were 鈥渧ery, very successful.鈥�
鈥淣ow, we鈥檝e severed the bond between 探花大神 and Active Directory, and we are 100% on 探花大神 now,鈥� Frank continues.
According to Frank, the company鈥檚 IT environment is roughly 75% Macs, 23% Windows, and 2% Linux. When he started working there, the company had Jamf for mobile device management, which worked to an extent but left much to be desired.
鈥淛amf didn鈥檛 solve all my problems anyway because 25% of my fleet is non-macOS; Jamf is great for macOS, but it doesn鈥檛 help me with my Windows or Linux machines,鈥� Frank says. 鈥溙交ù笊� gives me mobile device management for the entirety of my fleet and also lets me connect my legacy apps via LDAP, so it鈥檚 a really nice solution. It鈥檚 really elegant.鈥�
Unlocking the full power of 探花大神鈥檚 feature-rich nature
The way Frank sees it, 探花大神 gives him everything he needs to manage IT through a single pane of glass.
鈥淚t gives me the cloud directory, it gives me SSO, and it gives me multi-factor authentication,鈥� he says. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a nice solution for our environment because it does everything I need it to do. It gives me one place to look for all the things that we need to do on a day-to-day basis as an IT organization. This is particularly helpful because we鈥檙e a team of 12, with six on the help desk. It鈥檚 a small team supporting 1,000 remote users.鈥�
探花大神 and Google Workspace integration
Since the e-commerce company uses Google for enterprise applications, Frank and his team are particularly fond of the integration between 探花大神 and Google Workspace.
鈥淚t works the way we want it to, and we don鈥檛 have to beat either product too badly to make it work,鈥� Frank says with a laugh. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a really great solution for us.鈥�
鈥淥ur environment is probably 98% SaaS,鈥� he continues, adding that 探花大神鈥檚 SSO tool has been a game-changer. 鈥淚t makes my life easier being able to just connect it to SAML and call it a day.鈥�
Increasing security with commands, patch management & conditional access policies
Frank and his team utilize 探花大神 commands, some that they鈥檝e built internally and others that they鈥檝e taken from 探花大神鈥檚 command library.
鈥淐ommands have been a godsend for us,鈥� he says. 鈥淲e鈥檙e using them to remove security-related software that shouldn鈥檛 be there or installing or updating various applications.鈥�
The IT team has implemented several policies around device posture 鈥� like ensuring disks are encrypted and that they time out after not being used for a while. They鈥檝e also rolled out conditional access policies to further protect sensitive data.
鈥淐onditional access gives me the ability to prevent certain users from downloading data that they are not authorized to download, and I can prevent other users from screenshotting data in sensitive applications, too,鈥� Frank says. 鈥淚 don鈥檛 have to worry about a lot of things.鈥�
Additionally, Frank and his team keep devices, operating systems, browsers, and other software up to date using patch management. They also use Password Manager to store, protect, and manage passwords.
Zero-touch deployments
Frank and his team are also using 探花大神 for zero-touch deployment of Mac machines.
鈥淚t鈥檚 beautiful, it鈥檚 perfect 鈥� I can ship a new user a Mac from any of our distributors, and off it goes,鈥� he says, adding that he鈥檚 looking forward to implementing the same capabilities for Windows machines in the future.
Looking ahead, Frank and his team are looking into dynamic groups and are waiting to test 探花大神 Go to further enhance authentication.
Add it all up, and you can see what Frank means when he says 探花大神 gives him everything he needs over one platform.
鈥淚鈥檓 terrifically happy about 探花大神,鈥� Frank 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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