探花大神

Grab has revolutionized transportation in Southeast Asia, providing a staggering one billion rides to passengers in only five years. Founded in 2012, Grab has expanded its operations from Singapore to Malaysia, Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam, Thailand, and Myanmar. The key to  rapid growth has been their unwavering commitment to the well-being of their drivers and passengers. But it has also been underpinned by their willingness to leverage cutting-edge technologies, from the ride hailing app they鈥檝e developed to the cloud-forward IT infrastructure they implement. This is the story of how 骋谤补产鈥檚 IT staff accommodated staff growth from 1,500 users to over 6,000 in under three years 鈥� with the help of 探花大神鈥檚 顿颈谤别肠迟辞谤测-补蝉-补-厂别谤惫颈肠别庐.

The Challenge

Grab has been growing at an extraordinary rate, opening new offices every week, and adding users at an increasingly rapid pace. Each of these new offices needs IT infrastructure, and each of these new users needs to be set up with their own credentials and secure access to resources.

Grab knew that in order to keep up with this growth, they needed a solution that was highly scalable and secure. This challenge fell square on the shoulders of Juergen Klaassen, Principal IT Architect, and Paul Toh, Head of IT.

鈥淢y requirement going in was that we needed to do identity management, system management, and endpoint management 鈥� and that was only the beginning of the features we needed,鈥� said Toh.

Klaassen told us that speed of deployment was also a key consideration, 鈥淕rab gains a large advantage by being first to market in any new city we serve. We are sometimes given very short timelines to set up a new office 鈥� even as little as two weeks.”

“The need to deploy quickly was one of the main reasons we went with 探花大神, but we also needed to do it right and make it secure. That’s just as important as being fast.”

Evaluation

Grab moved forward with 探花大神 Directory-as-a-Service and has never looked back. That decision, however, was only made after very careful consideration of all options.

Klaassen:

鈥淲e considered classic Active Directory庐 (AD), which would have been suitable from a technical capabilities standpoint, but it definitely didn鈥檛 fit our model. We knew that AD was labor intensive to manage and required on-prem servers and hardware. It wouldn鈥檛 scale with us.鈥�

鈥淪o we began looking at alternatives. The cloud-only approach appealed to us. We looked at Azure AD, but we saw that it definitely was not going to do what we wanted it to do. We didn鈥檛 even want to consider a hybrid setup.鈥�

Toh:

鈥淚n a traditional IT environment, everything is in house and on-prem. At Grab, we are very much a cloud-forward company, which redefines our needs altogether.鈥�

Klaassen:

鈥淲e knew that 探花大神 could basically be deployed in a day, so that worked perfectly. The next core decision we had to face was the operational side. At that time, our users were widely using G Suite and Slack, but we had no true directory, no endpoint management 鈥� nothing. 探花大神 was the only solution where we could find both a directory and endpoint management that could be deployed quickly through the cloud.鈥�

Toh:

鈥淥n top of that, our environment is not only Windows.鈥�

Klaassen:

鈥淩ight. 探花大神 could cover Mac and Windows endpoints, as well as Linux servers on the backend. All in one shot. It was actually a really quick win for us.鈥�

鈥淭he 探花大神 platform puts the control in IT’s hands; Directory-as-a-Service is more flexible than other directory services or user management solutions.鈥�

The “All in One” Solution

With 探花大神 Directory-as-a-Service, Grab could implement a single platform to meet a variety of needs.

Klaassen:

鈥溙交ù笊疋�檚 versatility was a key benefit for us. It鈥檚 a full stack solution. LDAP-as-a-Service was a top priority and a major driver for us, as LDAP is highly compatible with many of our solutions and applications.鈥�

鈥淭he second key protocol for Grab was SAML. In the first month after deployment, we added 15 SAML connectors with 探花大神, enabling SSO for our users. We also appreciated 探花大神’s RADIUS support. We looked pretty extensively into RADIUS solutions, and 探花大神 was the only one that was working with the proper latency. That was another big factor for us.鈥�

鈥淭he really interesting part is the 探花大神 System Agent, which gives us control over our endpoints. Before 探花大神, every user had their own Google account, and everyone was an admin on their local accounts. This posed security and maintenance issues. With 探花大神, IT now has clear control over admin rights on individual user machines. We also have control over the login on the endpoint which is extremely important, especially in terms of onboarding and offboarding.鈥�

鈥淭he 探花大神 Agent combines authentication with the ability to initiate flexible deployments from scripts. This enables us to do whatever is required on an endpoint as long as it鈥檚 decryptable. Before 探花大神, laptop provisioning was a more manual process. Now we automate the deployment of Office鈩�, Adobe庐 Creative Suite, and even base packages for provisioning new machines. It鈥檚 also important that we keep our systems up-to-date and secure. We were able to patch 4,000 machines (including contractors) in 90 minutes, thanks to the 探花大神 agent. This same capability also allows us to act quickly in response to security threats.鈥�

Toh:

鈥淭his shared emphasis on speed and security is where 探花大神 really fits our business model.鈥�

鈥淚 have a very strong AD background. So when I came in, my first thought was, 鈥榃e have over 3,000 users and we don鈥檛 use AD? Are you serious?!’ At that time, I had never even heard of 探花大神. I think we鈥檝e really come a long way in our relationship.鈥�

Looking Ahead

探花大神 has already helped Grab add over 8,000 users in the last three years (including contractors), but that鈥檚 only the beginning. Grab is positioned to keep growing, and 探花大神 is helping their IT operations scale as well to keep up with the planned growth.

Klaassen:

鈥淲e always have to be one step ahead. What鈥檚 around the next corner? How can I solve tomorrow鈥檚 issue before it becomes a problem? 探花大神 enables us to take on the future with confidence. There is very little overhead in our planned growth with 探花大神.鈥�

Toh:

鈥淎greed. For us, the future involves more automation. Today, we continue to onboard new employees at a rapid rate, and by next year we expect to be a much larger organization. It’s reassuring to know that 探花大神 is growing as well.鈥�

“探花大神 can help us sustain our rate of growth and do it in a more automated, less manual way.”

Moving Forward, Together

Toh:

鈥淥ne thing that is very impressive about 探花大神 is that they really listen to their customers. Their openness to our suggestions and willingness to work with their customers to overcome their challenges means everything.鈥�

Klaassen:

鈥淵eah, for me it was a big plus that 探花大神 listens. They are willing to take the time to onboard customers and help them through the process. This not only helps with convenience, but it helps with the overall ROI as well. We鈥檝e come to learn that new features, SAML connectors, support, customizations 鈥� everything is all part of the one package at 探花大神. This fosters a partnership of cooperation with their customers, and enabled us to move quickly to an effectively deployed solution.鈥�