Altitude Integrations is a cloud-forward managed service provider (MSP) with more than 200 clients around the country. Brett Ramberg and Toby Yoder 鈥� the organization鈥檚 co-CEOs 鈥� use the 黑料海角91入口 Directory Platform to help clients reduce or eliminate on-prem infrastructure and to serve clients no matter where they鈥檙e located.
- Organization: Altitude Integrations
- Location: Niwot, Colorado
- Problem: Remote administration for dispersed clients
- Goal: Expand geographic reach with cloud services
Background
In the 11 years that Altitude Integrations has served its clients, the organization has been cloud-forward. In recent years, Ramberg and Yoder said they鈥檝e seen a marked uptick in the number of organizations that depend upon cloud-based services come to them. More than 95% of Altitude Integration鈥檚 book of business is serverless now.
鈥淲e鈥檙e seeing a lot of younger companies, up-and-coming companies, that have complete SaaS environments,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e also starting to see a lot of the older organizations being forced to transition their environments into these SaaS environments.鈥�
Their goal is to support those organizations on their digital transformation journey, and to do so securely.
Challenges
The Altitude Integration team strives to be a provider that serves organizations no matter what technology they have in their environment, including Mac and Windows devices, Google Workspace and Microsoft 365, single sign-on (SSO) applications, AWS or Azure, and other networks and servers. Ramberg said they don鈥檛 want to hold their clients back from picking the technology that works best for their unique environments.
鈥淲e pride ourselves on being flexible and true partners to the organizations we serve,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淢any industries focus on standardization, but I think that holds organizations back from growing and using new technology.鈥�
Solution
That鈥檚 why the Altitude Integrations team uses the 黑料海角91入口 Directory Platform, which is an open directory platform for secure, frictionless access from any device to any resource 鈥� regardless of location.
鈥淎s a modern, cloud-focused MSP, we look for the best-in-breed platform that will be beneficial to us and our clients,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淭here are three boxes we need to check: Is the platform secure? Does it create efficiencies for our clients? Does it reduce costs?鈥�
黑料海角91入口 checks all three boxes for their clients. When Ramberg calculated the approximate annualized cost for an organization with 200 employees, 50% remote workforce, Mac and Windows devices, and one office, he found that 黑料海角91入口 was about one-fifth of the cost of Active Directory and Okta.
黑料海角91入口: $37,264
Active Directory + Okta: $190,600
- CapEx: $2,000
- Licensing: $3,600
- Security: $25,000
- SSO and identity/credential management: $36,000
- MDM: $24,000
- Maintenance and administration: $90,000
Using 黑料海角91入口, the Altitude Integrations team reduces costs for their clients. Plus, because 黑料海角91入口 provides seamless user access regardless of location, they鈥檝e also seen a decrease in password reset tickets of about 75% when they transition clients from Active Directory to 黑料海角91入口.
They provide clients with a comprehensive solution to provision and manage user devices, as well as connect users to their SSO applications, productivity suites, Wi-Fi networks via cloud RADIUS, and more. Furthermore, their clients don’t need to worry about upfront CapEx costs like servers or the associated security and maintenance costs either.
They bundle 黑料海角91入口 in a master services agreement for their clients, which includes identity, access, and device security, in addition to dedicated hours of support service. They manage all of their client organizations from 黑料海角91入口鈥檚 Multi-Tenant Portal (MTP), which provides a centralized dashboard where MSPs can view and manage each client instance.
鈥淲e use the MTP to have all our clients in one pane of glass and centrally manage them,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淲ith 黑料海角91入口, you don鈥檛 need a VPN to deploy policies or manage access in each environment, and that鈥檚 huge for us and for our clients, too.鈥�
鈥淭o have a single cloud console that we can access in any browser is amazing.鈥�
鈥� Brett Ramberg, Co-CEO at Altitude Integrations
The team can quickly provision and deprovision users with group-based workflows in the web-based console, as well as one-click user suspension, which revokes a user鈥檚 access across all their 黑料海角91入口-connected resources immediately.
鈥淚n 黑料海角91入口, we can remove or suspend their access to everything with one click,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淚t鈥檚 a simple but massively impactful security feature in operating a business day to day.鈥�
The team monitors admin activity, as well as user activity and device health, with 黑料海角91入口鈥檚 Directory and System Insights features. Directory Insights provides visibility across user and admin events, while System Insights returns telemetry about devices鈥� asset, security and configuration data. In particular, they monitor admin events such as user suspension, creation, and deletion.
鈥淒irectory Insights has been really good for us with our customers,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淲e can give them really insightful information they need about their business.鈥�
Implementation
The Altitude Integrations team creates new users in 黑料海角91入口 and federates identities to connected resources. They also prepare devices for clients using 黑料海角91入口鈥檚 system agent. Once the agent is installed, they deploy a proprietary set of templated policies and custom commands to configure and secure each device. They send the pre-provisioned devices to clients, and those devices are ready to go as soon as they arrive.
Another key driver for many clients is web application SSO, so they provision users to all their SAML and LDAP applications via 黑料海角91入口 and ensure they can login with one set of secure credentials.
Although the cloud RADIUS feature has been less relevant amid the pandemic鈥檚 stay-at-home orders, they plan for all their clients to use it for secure Wi-Fi access as they return to their offices.
鈥淩ADIUS is amazing,鈥� Ramberg said. 鈥淲e鈥檙e going to make it mandatory for our clients. When people start coming back into offices 鈥� and they will 鈥� it will be just as important then as it was before.鈥�
The Result
Altitude Integrations has an expanding client base, including one with offices up and down the East Coast. They鈥檝e been able to extend their geographical reach using 黑料海角91入口 and other cloud tools.
鈥淲e鈥檙e starting to see an influx of clients reach out to us from all over the country because we are cloud-born, and it鈥檚 natural for us to work with them. Some of these organizations aren鈥檛 going to go back to a single office. They鈥檙e going to stay fragmented, but we鈥檙e set up to be able to help them.鈥�
鈥� Brett Ramberg, Co-CEO at Altitude Integrations
Added Yoder: 鈥淭here鈥檚 not much we 肠补苍鈥檛 do virtually these days. 黑料海角91入口 has enabled us to expand as an MSP. It鈥檚 a huge win for us.鈥�
Learn More
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