Datum is a venture-backed company building a network cloud for an internet increasingly shaped by AI traffic. As its engineering teams adopted new AI tools at a rapid pace, the company needed a way to maintain visibility and control without slowing innovation. Furthermore, Datum required a solution to gain visibility into SaaS usage and prevent unmanaged tool sprawl, effectively mitigating the risks associated with shadow IT.
By consolidating identity and access management on JumpCloud, Datum replaced fragmented IT tools with a centralized platform. Ultimately, this transition simplifies user management, supports secure AI adoption, and prepares the business for enterprise growth and strict compliance requirements.
Here are some key impacts at a glance:
100% Centralized identity management.
Reduced operational overhead by consolidating multiple tools into JumpCloud.
Zero friction tool adoption while improving visibility and reducing shadow IT
IT foundation that supports automation, global physical infrastructure, and upcoming SOC 2 certifications.
More about Datum
Datum is a venture-backed startup founded in late 2024 that is building a network cloud designed for an internet reshaped by the demands of AI. Its target customers are large service providers that build their own products on top of Datum’s connected infrastructure platform. Consequently, high availability, strict security, and operational maturity are essential from the outset.
Recognizing these expectations early, Datum embedded governance into its operations from day one. The organization adopted a security-first approach across its infrastructure, software supply chain, and device lifecycle to ensure its internal operations could scale safely.
We’re targeting large, service-provider customers. As such, we’ve purposely spent a significant amount of our energy and resources on governance across all areas of the company.
—Zachary Smith, Founder, Datum
The Challenge: Rapid AI Adoption and Security
Innovation moves quickly at Datum. Engineers regularly evaluate and adopt AI tools, such as Cursor and Claude, to improve development workflows. Because models and related tools advance regularly, waiting through lengthy approval processes is neither practical nor culturally desirable.
At the same time, every new hosted service introduces potential risks. Employees can easily activate new services, expanding the organization’s attack surface and financial obligations if left unmanaged. Datum wanted to encourage experimentation without creating unnecessary barriers for its engineering teams. The core challenge was balancing speed with control.
The company’s existing IT environment made that balance increasingly difficult. To manage the user lifecycle, the IT team relied on multiple independent tools, including a Google-focused onboarding solution called Yesh ID, alongside manual checklists. As the company scaled, maintaining these disconnected systems added unnecessary complexity.
I think everybody’s suffering from tool fatigue. Managing and integrating too many tools and keeping them up creates a lot of unnecessary work and we wanted to reduce that. We knew we needed a unified platform which is why we turned to JumpCloud rather than relying on individual point solutions we had to stitch together.
—Zachary Smith, Founder, Datum
The leadership team also recognized that overly restrictive processes often drive employees to bypass IT entirely.
We are adopting new tools and practices every day, which is inherently difficult to govern. The challenge is enabling our team without losing operational control and that is exactly where JumpCloud has been so impactful.
—Jacob Smith, Co-founder, Datum
The Solution: Frictionless Governance and Secure Tool Adoption
To resolve these tensions, Datum adopted JumpCloud as its central platform for identity, access, and user lifecycle management.
Initially, the team transitioned directory management from Google Workspace directly to JumpCloud. By making JumpCloud the primary directory, the company centralized password policies, onboarding, and offboarding workflows. This significantly reduced the operational overhead of managing fragmented tools.
Additionally, JumpCloud supports Datum’s predominantly Mac-based environment and select Linux users. As part of its Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) strategy, the company gives employees spend controls to select their preferred hardware, while IT maintains consistent governance in the background. Today, the IT team also utilizes the JumpCloud API to automate administrative tasks, such as seamlessly assigning users to appropriate GitHub groups.
Most importantly, JumpCloud supports the company’s high-velocity AI adoption. Rather than relying on complex, bureaucratic approval workflows, Datum uses JumpCloud to build lightweight processes. This allows developers to request new tools rapidly while giving IT the visibility necessary to manage SaaS usage securely.
We wanted to balance governance with agility. With JumpCloud, our engineers can request a new tool via Slack rather than navigating a manual approval process that encourages them to bypass governance entirely. That is simply not the culture we want to create.
—Jacob Smith, Co-founder, Datum
Looking Ahead
As Datum continues to grow, it plans to expand its JumpCloud utilization across its infrastructure.
The IT team is currently evaluating a broader rollout of agent-level access to further strengthen its BYOD program while preserving employee hardware choice. Additionally, Datum plans to leverage its robust identity foundation to officially begin the SOC 2 certification process in Q3.
Datum also intends to utilize JumpCloud’s hosted LDAP and RADIUS capabilities. As the company deploys physical network devices globally, these unique hosted services will authenticate the hardware—eliminating the need to run and maintain separate RADIUS and LDAP associations.
Ultimately, Datum leverages JumpCloud not to limit technology adoption, but to make it secure. With centralized identity and access management, the company safely embraces next-generation AI tools while maintaining the strict operational discipline required by its enterprise customer base.