5 ways 1E completes the Microsoft Modern Management story

Microsoft Modern Management: The stuff dreams are made of

For many businesses, a modern management story from Microsoft is the fairy tale ending they’ve dreamed of. A host of modern solutions that enable security, application deployment, and even the ability (with the right vendor contracts) to prepare a machine for remote build to drop ship new devices straight to an employee’s home. With WVD (Windows Virtual Desktop) the story was even better: a click-and-go solution for the modern world where customers can use Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) in the cloud hosted by Microsoft.
An enterprise has greater needs though and, for that reason, may need to add solutions to gain the best possible ROI from the investment. For an example out of our scope, Brad Anderson and PJ Hough recently announced a partnership between Citrix and Microsoft to help enterprises manage the WVD solution via Citrix Cloud. The message is clear: enterprises need a little extra help to maximize their Microsoft investment.
This is where 1E’s family of products can add additional value to the Modern Management story of Microsoft…

1. Complete visibility

Recently, Microsoft released a number of products that reduce the need for some customers to use our Nomad product. The idea is that a well-configured and manually maintained collection of tools (BranchCache, Peer Cache, LEDBaT, and Delivery Optimization) can meet most of the use cases of Nomad. The downside is that there is little visibility in the Microsoft solution natively and no pre-caching of content to allow distribution.
That’s not enough to keep the value of our product though and good enough has never been the mantra of 1E. Instead, we added new capabilities for existing customers to be able to view accurate Delivery Optimization information in real time. Gaining complete visibility quickly is the hallmark of what we do best to help our customers’ extract the greatest value from their Microsoft investments.

2. Microsoft Intune

Microsoft has released a Store for Business with Intune integration that allows you to manage some enterprise licensing via the store and a also the Company Portal. Each of Microsoft’s stores does a fantastic job in showing content to end users in various ways. However, some enterprises require a proper workflow around content distribution, which is why we built 1E Shopping. Shopping version 6.0 also allows direct integration for Intune. In fact, a customer who wishes to shop for a new application doesn’t need to know if they are using Intune, MEMCM, or both—it happens with a single request and the system deploys the software in the most convenient way.

3. Intune policies

With Modern Management on the cloud, many solutions have moved toward the management of Intune policies instead of Group Policies or, in some cases, they still use both to manage machines. These two policy engines rely on a certain cadence of feedback from devices, which dictates how effective a certain policy is. At the same time, the information that comes back from the endpoint follows a similar speed. That speed could be minutes, hours, or even days depending on the kind of update requested. With Tachyon and Guaranteed State, we have solved that problem for customers.
Customers that want to move away from GPO and into a Modern Management Intune and Azure AD world, use Tachyon Guaranteed State settings to bridge the gap. In a powerful, extensible, event-driven engine, Guaranteed State can ensure compliance, take action when compliance is not met, or simply report on the state in real time. The moment a change happens in the system, Guaranteed State acts; it does not wait for the next time a policy comes down. It’s as if every rule is its own policy and they all have one timing—now.

4. Client health

Client health has been an issue for enterprises since the days of Windows NT. Sometimes, update services stop working, Azure AD no longer functions, and even an anti-virus software (often the target of attacks) can be disabled. With Guaranteed State rules in place, these heavy agents that are built to protect the machines of users can do the job they’re supposed to do.

5. User sentiment

Recently, lots of applications have started surfacing up user sentiment information (for example, Microsoft Teams will ask the user about the quality of their call immediately after it’s over to gage sentiment with the application). This is a great way to find a Net Promoter Score or to understand user satisfaction. In Tachyon, we have built an engine that understands the user’s sentiment. Not only does it ask basic questions about the device, but it can be used to ask about specific applications, updates, or new information of any type. Like the rest of the platform it has default capabilities but is also completely extensible. The best part? Instead of the vendor having all the information about what is working and what is not, that information goes directly to you to action.
The world keeps changing. Each year our valued partners will make changes to their products. They’ll implement features to close the gaps that we work in and every year we’ll continue to stay one, two, or ten steps ahead of the competition. We work faster and smarter to give businesses and IT the edge they need to succeed in an ever-shifting landscape.
To learn more about the Microsoft and 1E story, why not speak to a 1E Solutions expert.