We are elated to announce that Scalefusion now offers its users the On-Prem Connector to access an organization’s on-premise resources such as Microsoft Active Directory. IT admins can create secure and encrypted connections between the Scalefusion dashboard and an organization’s on-prem services which are not accessible over the public internet, without the threat of data leakage. The incorporation of this capability makes Scalefusion perfect for even a hybrid-deployment model with partial cloud and on-premise environments.
Organizations of every sector rely heavily on technology for both simple and complex processes with an aim to reduce the manual and recurring workload on their teams. The IT teams of every organization are heavily burdened with several such manuals and tedious tasks for which the contemporary world has come up with tools and solutions to automate recurring processes and reduce redundant and time-consuming tasks.
Implementation of Active Directory (AD) in organizations is one of many such methods that help an enterprise’s IT admins to manage permissions better and streamline access to a company’s network resources such as user groups, hardware, applications and more. Cloud-based Microsoft environments rely on Azure AD for centralized control of users, computers and more. Microsoft Active Directory is the on-premise counterpart that stores sensitive employee information and is not accessible over the internet.
The adoption of Mobile Device Management (MDM) solutions is a common practice as organizations have realized its importance in streamlining organization-wide management for IT admins. The On-prem Connector is a medium that enables a secure connection between the MDM dashboard and the organization’s on-premise resources such as the Microsoft Active Directory, MS Exchange and more.
In order to successfully set up the On-prem connector using the Scalefusion dashboard, IT admins must fulfill the following requisites;
For the on-prem connector to successfully connect and share the information between the MDM dashboard and the On-prem connector instance, the connection request needs to be established from the Scalefusion dashboard. This creates an authorized connection to access the on-premise Microsoft Active Directory.
The OPC acts as a mediator between the Scalefusion dashboard and the on-premise resource to relay the necessary information back and forth. Furthermore, the data being transferred stays completely secure and encrypted with session keys which ensures that sensitive information is not leaked.
The communication between Scalefusion and the on-prem connector takes place in two ways; either via reverse proxy-store or directly
i) Via reverse proxy: The Web Server / Reverse Proxy must have a valid public DNS name with a valid TLS/SSL certificate issued by a publicly trusted Certificate Authority. The diagram below explains this scheme.
ii) Direct connection with OPC: The machine hosting On-Prem Connector must have a static public IP address or public DNS name. The diagram below explains this scheme.
While it is clear that the On-Prem Connector enables a simplified way to securely connect with an organization’s on-premise Active Directory, let’s look at some of the applications that can be achieved with this connectivity.
With the On-Prem connector setup, IT Admins can import AD users/User Groups on Scalefusion Dashboard and enroll them to Scalefusion. The administrators simply require a Scalefusion account with Enterprise License and the OPC configuration and set up done.
With the On-Prem connector setup, IT Admins can set up AD-based access to Scalefusion Dashboard which means the admins can sign in to Scalefusion Dashboard with AD credentials. For this, they need to choose AD (setup with OPC) as the sign-in provider. However, IT admins are required to fulfill the following pre-requisites to achieve AD-based dashboard access.
Once users/groups are imported their devices can be enrolled as BYOD on all platforms, viz. Android, Windows, iOS and Mac.
On-Prem Connector is the ideal way to access on-premise resources that hold sensitive business and employee information in an encrypted manner. Get started with the On-Prem Connector (OPC) for Scalefusion. To know more about the configuration and OPC set up please refer to our help doc.