As a company that manages shipping containers that are constantly moving around the world and bills customers by the day, Seaco\u2019s operations are highly complex. The company interfaces with 500+ container ports and depots worldwide via EDI and API, and reams of data flow back and forth from the ports to company headquarters.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nJumpCloud allowed us to not only collapse a few of the products that we were using into a single interface, it also meant that we were able to manage the policies of end-user devices irrespective of whether it was a Mac or a PC.<\/p>\nDamian Leach<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
\u201cData is absolutely paramount \u2014 it runs our business,\u201d says Damian Leach, chief information officer at Seaco. \u201cSecurity is a really big thing for us; we\u2019ve evolved our environment; we\u2019re looking at new ways of managing the IT assets we have \u2014 not only the ones we distribute across the employee base but also those that serve our transactional platform.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
According to Leach, Seaco\u2019s environment is nearly 100% cloud-based, and the company plans to move entirely into the cloud by the first quarter of 2025. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOur company uses a mix of Macs and Windows laptops, and we also issue mobile devices to our staff, who work in different time zones across the globe,\u201d Leach continues. \u201cThis can be a challenge from an end-user support standpoint.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leach joined Seaco in October 2023; once he came on board, the company started giving employees the option of using Macs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe wanted to provide an alternative solution to all staff, lightweight, robust, high-performance machines with a long battery life as a lot of our staff are on the road a lot. This is where the Macbook Air came in. As a result of that, we needed to review the way that we were securing and managing our new and existing devices,\u201d he says. \u201cAt the time, our device management solution wasn\u2019t covering mobile devices, and we weren\u2019t able to support Macs. We had kind of a disparate approach to endpoint management, and we wanted to create a consistent approach and also have remote access control due to the distributed nature of our company.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Choosing JumpCloud to consolidate IT tooling<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
When the IT team also began looking for a mobile device management<\/a> solution, they considered Microsoft Intune and MobileIron.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nJumpCloud gave us a consistent, single-pane-of-glass view to actively manage the environment that we had as well as the net-new environment that we were delivering as part of the end-user transformation strategy we introduced.<\/p>\nDamian Leach<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Since the bulk of the IT team is based in Singapore, they need tools that support the remote nature of Seaco\u2019s operations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cJumpCloud fits into that very well, too,\u201d Leach explains. \u201cBecause of the distributed nature of our offices, it was normally quite a challenge to manage our users\u2019 devices remotely.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Future-proofing IT management & operations<\/h2>\n\n\n\n
With JumpCloud, employees now have the option to choose which devices they want to use since the IT team can manage all types of devices with ease.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cWe applied a remote lock policy as well as a remote delete policy on all devices to protect the organization\u2019s data,\u201d Leach says. \u201cThat was absolutely key for me \u2014 a part that was missing from the mobility approach we had previously.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Leach and his team were also impressed by JumpCloud\u2019s feature-rich nature and robust R&D roadmap.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cOne thing that we looked at was what our current needs are versus what we might need in the future,\u201d Leach explains. \u201cIt\u2019s clear that JumpCloud is spending a decent amount of money on R&D and therefore keeping up with the trends such as passwordless authentication<\/a> and zero-trust support<\/a>. On top of the basic functionality, we made sure we were future-proof; it\u2019s great to know these features are there in case we mature our posture to that point. I just don\u2019t see the competing products putting enough thought into their R&D roadmap.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
While Seaco\u2019s currently 100% based in AWS, the team is evaluating the advantages of adopting a multi-cloud strategy. Thanks to JumpCloud, they know they can seamlessly move some assets to Google Cloud Platform<\/a> if they so choose, Leach says.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
With JumpCloud in place, Leach and his team are now looking to consolidate cybersecurity tooling and implement a zero-trust strategy.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cIt will put fences around our core assets,\u201d Leach says. \u201cWe\u2019re also looking at things like geofencing and getting the necessary telemetry from devices that we need to try to protect against any kind of threats that may or may not happen across our environment. JumpCloud forms a big part of our holistic security strategy across our cyber defense posture.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
Due to the critical space it operates in, Seaco gets audited every year.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cFrom an IT standpoint, we\u2019re looking to roll out segregation of duty policies across core assets and infrastructure,\u201d Leach continues. \u201cJumpCloud forms a big part of that strategy as well; we\u2019re able to provide logs as well as lockdown asset controls beyond what we used to be able to do.\u201d<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Currently, the team is in the process of implementing JumpCloud authentication through single sign-on<\/a> (SSO) to its transaction platforms. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThat\u2019s going to help us achieve ISO 27001 accreditation<\/a>, which we\u2019re in the process of going through,\u201d Leach says, adding that they\u2019re also exploring multi-factor authentication<\/a> (MFA) via JumpCloud.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
When it comes to rolling out any new technologies, headaches are the last thing IT teams want; JumpCloud didn\u2019t cause any.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cTo be honest, it\u2019s been incredibly easy to roll out,\u201d Leach says. \u201cThe team has had very, very good feedback in terms of ease of use and ease of rollout for the platform to support our authentication needs across our core applications.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
As a data-driven organization, Seaco is currently in the process of building a brand-new data lakehouse to power its AI use cases.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cThings like oil prices, steel prices, market data on where the ships are and where they\u2019re likely to port \u2014 feeding all that information into the big data lakehouse and then running AI analysis to try and predict the patterns is super exciting,\u201d Leach says. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\u201cSupply chain analytics is absolutely critical for us, and the future of analytics is looking at those external data feeds to make more predictive decisions,\u201d he continues. <\/p>\n\n\n\n
\nIt\u2019s really about creating a global AI-enabled data platform that facilitates the necessary data-driven insights for our business to make the right decisions, and JumpCloud helps us get there.<\/p>\nDamian Leach<\/cite><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n
Using policies to protect devices<\/h3>\n\n\n\n
Leach and his team also use JumpCloud to push updates and policies<\/a> out to all devices. In particular, the team was concerned with being able to manage the Apple fleet remotely, but \u201cit was made super simple by JumpCloud.\u201d <\/p>\n\n\n\n
In JumpCloud, Leach has found a tool that makes life easier.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
About JumpCloud<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n
To see the power of JumpCloud yourself, request a demo<\/a> or start a 30-day trial<\/a> today.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"