Entertainment and Media

Business Goals 

Our customer utilised Okta Identity and other vendor solutions and was acquired by an organization primarily utilizing Azure Active Directory. As part of the overall consolidation strategy, consolidated users from both organizations would need visibility to similar suites of applications. Access to them should be seamless, secure and well audited. 

Challenges

• Dis-aggregated applications across multiple platforms and on-premises
• Demanding timelines to move away from the identity provider to avoid financial implications
• Lack of prior familiarity performing application integration at scale
• Multiple providers and methods used for multi-factor authentication

Approach

Cloudneo’s experienced architects and project managers initiated a rapid discovery and inventory of applications, together with an automation & tracking strategy. The team additionally explored ADFS-integrated applications and included them in the application set to be migrated.  

Program/Project Managers drafted a creative and target-led plan to schedule application migrations.  

A ramped approach was adopted providing for applications with extensive user populations scheduled to follow proving sample/test applications. In doing so, Cloudeo preserved the client’s confidence in moving forwards based on real achievements. 

Working with application vendors, Cloudneo was able to orchestrate a clear understanding of  the impact of updating the identity provider & to ensured adequate support structures were in place The team created a flexible communications to be shared with end users to optimise the transitions ahead. 

Our expert Cloud Identity professionals supported and completed upgrades at scheduled times and within client expectations. 

Key Results/Benefits 

• A truly Single Sign on experience for end users
• A Seamless access to applications post-merger for these organizations
• Reduction in costs of licenses and support by consolidating to a single Identity provider
• Secured access to all key applications by users
• Initiated a zero trust model for the organization.

Divested Investment Bank

Business Goals

An agile but established Investment Bank faced multiple challenges around the divestment of group Data-centres to re-factor their cost base.  Previously using an on-premises device management system, the bank was seeking a cloud-only device management platform.

Challenges

• A need for adept service providers to transform the device provisioning supply chain 
• Device Management required devices to be office-resident or corporate VPN-connected at all times 
• A monolithic support and deployment model based on highly manual processes.

Approach

Cloudneo’s approach included envisioning and showcasing technologies that provided functional equivalence for the existing legacy systems. Analysis of the three separate device management solutions produced a target architecture and roadmap for the client to assess.  Microsoft’s Intune, Apple Business Manager and Windows Autopilot provisioning formed the cornerstone of our toolkit 

A POC lab was established to near-mirror the existing infrastructure in Azure IaaS and example devices added to the lab to provide a model deployment workbench and user platform.  Through effective collaboration with Back-office client teams, an Intune MDM and MAM solution was then rolled out to provide an ‘out of the box’ device solution, replacing and enhancing the existing legacy solution capability. 

Key Results/Benefits

• Retirement of a six-figure cost for annual on-premises licensing 
• A consistent and compliant device on all form-factors 
• Far deeper insight into device and user security and the introduction of tighter controls 
• New device and user functions are more easily assessed and released. 

Global Legal Firm

Business Scenario

The client had expanded through acquisition, resulting in multiple Active Directory domains at varying levels of support and function.  As a result, Active Directory policies were separately maintained and supported, creating fragmentation across the group.  IT leadership challenged the inefficiencies in deploying new configurations, reporting on compliance, and integrating with applications that required Active Directory.

Challenges

The client envisioned a target Active Directory with a single Forest and single Domain for the entire group of companies, introducing the Cloudneo team to:

• Define a target Active Directory configuration and support model to meet group requirements
• Migrate existing users and computers to the new Active Directory
• Implement Azure AD Connect for Password Synchronisation
• Optimise apps & resources connectivity to the legacy domain from the new domain, post migration. 

Approach

Cloudneo was tasked with establishing the program of work for defining the Active Directory configuration, support model, migration processes, and commencing the first batch of migrations. 

The Active Directory configuration was focused on developing a central repository with appropriate local delegation. As such, the configuration of security groups, Organizational Units, and Group Policy Objects to support a role based delegation model was defined. 

A cross forest Active Directory migration process was defined with a range of  SMEs. The migration process acknowledged the requirements for a period of co-existence across both existing and new Active Directory environments, including consideration for AD-dependent applications such as Microsoft Exchange. 

Cloudneo selected and utilised Quest’s Migration Manager Tool for Users, Computer / File Server / Application Server Migration. 

Key Results/Benefits

• Improved administration efficiency once all the resources were included in a single domain 
• Flexibility of accessing the resources from anywhere 
• For interconnected with individual WDC’s, availability was substantially  improved 
• Effective delegation of administration
• Increased reliability & reduced IT cost by minimising required server administration.