name: Zach Middleton
title: IT Manager
contact information: Zach.middleton@sifted.com
company name: Sifted
location: Kansas City, MO
- What solution (if any) were you using before JumpCloud? Before Jumpcloud, we used OneLogin for SSO, and Meraki for MDM, lacking an identity management system for users. Everything was segmented across multiple applications and nothing seemed to work together. As admins, we spent hours trying to get many different systems to work together. The worst part was when there was an issue, each vendor seemed to point the finger elsewhere and there was no way to know which system was causing problems.
- What was the challenge your company faced that led you to consider JumpCloud? The challenge Sifted was facing included segmented applications, where one system didn't talk to the other. IT spent hours setting up users in multiple systems, across many SaaS platforms that we used. Any time there was an issue, we had to contact multiple vendors. Sifted doesn't have an Active Directory domain and we are a hybrid work environment with about half of our staff permanently remote. This presents many challenges when using segmented, antiquated systems to manage many facets of our IT infrastructure.
- What made you choose JumpCloud as the solution to your needs? With Jumpcloud being a fellow start-up, we knew that innovation would be a focus of Jumpcloud. The thing that was most exciting for us was to be able to both manage our end-user identities and machines as well! An added bonus was being able to also have SSO handled by jumpcloud as well. The commands and policies were also an intriguing way to push out changes to our machines as well!
- Could you tell us about your company’s environment? How many users? What resources do you manage, including devices + cloud/on-prem infrastructure + applications, etc.? Sifted is a start-up SaaS company where we have a hybrid work environment. Our sales and support staff work in the office and our development and engineering teams all work remotely. We have about 200 users. We manage Windows and macOS devices. The majority of our infrastructure is hosted in AWS. Our applications are also hosted in AWS!
- Please also list any integrations, features, commands, policies, and anything else you’re using. Now’s your chance to tell us how awesome your project is and why it should win! As a SaaS company, we obviously believe in leveraging cloud computing. We have integrations built between Jumpcloud and the following cloud companies: Google GSuite, Salesforce, Atlassian, Slack, AWS, Cisco, Zoom, CarbonBlack (VMWare), Cloudflare, and many others. We have built SSO integrations with each of these cloud providers. The end-user experience is second to none; all of our users can access any of their daily applications from the jumpcloud portal. When we set up a new machine, we have policies in place to auto-install Google Chrome, Drive Stream, Slack, Zoom, and other specific applications that may be needed. As soon as we install the Jumpcloud agent and add that machine to a certain user group, BOOM! Applications get installed!! We also have been relying heavily on Jumpcloud's MFA features. All of our users have to authenticate with MFA once every 8 hours. The transition to MFA was very easy! We have certain commands set up as well. With the click of a button, I can push out our enterprise Antivirus, Carbon Black, and it installs so quickly! On macOS devices, we have policies in place to disable guest accounts, enable file vault, configure VPN, configure our corporate wifi connection, and also define system update policies. This makes our lives as admins so much easier! For Windows machines, we have policies in place for configuring BitLocker, disabling the use of USB drives, disabling guest accounts, and preventing Microsoft accounts that tend to take over the user profile. Having the ability to write policies like this really removes the need for the traditional Active Directory environment that is traditionally the standard in any corporate network. We are able to be on the cutting edge of cloud computing with Jumpcloud. We constantly get compliments from new hires about how seamless everything is set up!
- What are some results you’ve seen since implementing JumpCloud? What do you hope to achieve? The main result that we have seen from implementing Jumpcloud is how easy it is to manage user identities and machines all under the same application. As I said before, we were very segmented in our applications so there were many different places that we needed to make changes. Now it is all under one roof with Jumpcloud. As an admin who is constantly putting out small fires, it is a relief that when it comes to managing user identities and machines, I only have one place to go. My hope for Sifted is that as we continue to scale our business, we are able to easily with Jumpcloud. We deploy machines that are tied to user identities and everything just works.