MiQ Digital is a programmatic media partner that builds bespoke programmatic advertising solutions designed to help marketers and agencies make the smartest decisions for every campaign. They are experts in data science, analytics, and programmatic trading. The company, which is headquartered in the United Kingdom and has 15 global offices across four continents, employs more than 1,100 people around the world.
Managing a Globally Distributed Team with Manual Processes
As a company founded in 2010 that has scaled significantly over the last decade-plus, MiQ has seen its digital footprint grow considerably. Now, the team — which has a ratio of 49% Windows machines and 51% Mac machines — relies on 100 in-house and SaaS-based applications.
MiQ had been using on-prem Active Directory (AD) to manage users and McAfee Native Encryption to protect their devices. At the same time, they had to use different mobile device management (MDM) tools to manage Windows and MacOS users. Additionally, MiQ had manual onboarding and offboarding processes, as well as a manual user password reset process — all of which were cumbersome and frustrating.
This setup led to a number of problems. Not only did the team have to deploy additional domain controllers across all its locations to keep databases in sync, they also had to maintain each AD server on a regular basis in what was a time-consuming process.
“We were looking for a solution to sync user passwords across multiple platforms to support a secure, automated, and sustainable work environment,” says Yuva Rajesh, Lead System Engineer at MiQ.
Centralizing Employee Device Management with JumpCloud
Seeking a better way forward, MiQ began looking for a solution that would enable them to centralize device management with a cloud-based directory. After thoroughly researching their options, the team ultimately decided that JumpCloud was best suited for its needs due to its intuitive design, ease of use, resource- and cost-efficiency as a SaaS solution, and support for remote work.
“During COVID, many places were locked down,” Dani Gardner, Senior IT Specialist at MiQ, explains. “JumpCloud helped us deliver laptops directly to new employees with zero-touch provisioning, which gave our new hires the best onboarding experience.”
Plus, MiQ was particularly impressed with JumpCloud’s approach to customer support. For example, the company offers a dedicated customer support engineer, who ensures the team is aware of what they can do with the product and what’s coming down the pipeline so the MiQ team can plan ahead. MiQ and the dedicated CSM have worked on multiple initiatives to bring modernization and efficiencies to their current JumpCloud ecosystem.
The support team was also helpful in helping MiQ decide JumpCloud was the right fit. “During our testing stage, we raised multiple concerns,” Rajesh says. “Even though there was a time zone difference, the response was top-notch.”
Transforming IT Operations at MiQ
The decision to trust JumpCloud for mobile device management has already paid off. In JumpCloud, MiQ has found an all-in-one solution that meets several critical needs simultaneously.
“JumpCloud overall has been a game-changing platform for us,” Gardner says. “It’s significantly sped up delivery time for system engineers.”
Here are some of the other ways MiQ has benefitted from investing in JumpCloud.
Streamlined device management
Thanks to JumpCloud, MiQ has a unified MDM solution that enables IT to manage every machine in one place. “All of our laptops are fully managed using JumpCloud,” Rajesh explains. “We have directory sync enabled to have one password across all accounts.”
With JumpCloud, the IT team is able to roll out new software to users quickly, with a “100% success rate.” On the flip side, MiQ uses scripts to see which users have what software installed on their machines, which enables them to quickly remove software that shouldn’t be there, saving the company from legal compliance and billing issues.
Empowered employees
When MiQ was using Active Directory, they had a lot of lockout issues — particularly on holidays and weeks. But not anymore, which saves IT a ton of time.
“With the help of JumpCloud, all users are able to change their password and unlock themselves,” Gardner continues. “They feel comfortable when they receive the password link instead of using a temporary password when using AD server.”
Automated onboarding and offboarding workflows
JumpCloud has enabled MiQ to automate their onboarding and offboarding workflows entirely, including one-touch provisioning for new Mac machines. “JumpCloud helps us set up new users in under 10 minutes,” Rajesh explains. “We’ve been able to integrate with two major HRIS platforms, and have unblocked many of the blockers that previously slowed us down.”
Enhanced security
MiQ has been able to strengthen its security stance with JumpCloud thanks to VPN authentication via JumpCloud LDAP, local admin password rotation, centralized disk encrypt management and software patch management, and more.
“JumpCloud has helped us get stronger in our security posture,” Gardner says. “It also gives us more control over data and compliance.”
MiQ recently started using RADIUS-based Wi-Fi authentication, which improves security while also strengthening the employee experience. “We recently leveraged RADIUS authentication for office Wi-Fi authentication, which was applauded by many users because they don’t have to remember the Wi-Fi password and can use their same system password instead,” Rajesh continues.
Cloud migration
Thanks to JumpCloud, MiQ has been able to deprecate Active Directory and no longer hosts any of its own infrastructure. “We don’t have any on-prem servers in any of our offices around the globe,” he continues. Currently, all of the company’s workloads are managed via AWS.
Cost savings
JumpCloud has helped MiQ save a decent chunk of money by enabling them to shut down their AD servers. “This led to savings of nearly $8,000 per year on infrastructure and licensing,” Gardner says.
Additionally, moving to JumpCloud allowed MiQ to delegate its people resources more efficiently, with fewer manual processes eating up cloud and IT support engineers’ time.
A future-proof tech stack
With JumpCloud, Rajesh believes the team has found a tool that can keep pace with their growth. Looking ahead, MiQ plans on exploring JumpCloud’s SSO, asset management, and log management capabilities.
“Having JumpCloud in our ecosystem is a testimonial to the fact that we are on the right path to scale our business with the right future-proof tools in our pocket,” Gardner concludes.
To learn more, tune in to hear MiQ’s encouraging story on how they conquered IT sprawl in this on-demand webinar.
Learn More About JumpCloud
JumpCloud 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.
Get started with JumpCloud today.