Abridean Inc., a Halifax, Nova Scotia-based infrastructure software provider, yesterday announced that DirectPointe has selected AbrideanProvisor to deliver its messaging and collaboration solution, MailPointe.
DirectPointe targets small and midsize businesses (SMBs) with outsourced, subscription-based services that include evaluating, acquiring, deploying, testing, fulfilling and supporting technology.
“We had been attempting to use another vendor to handle the provisioning component of our messaging and collaboration solution. AbrideanProvisor’s functionality and ease of use was compelling enough for us to make the switch,” said Michael Proper, president and CEO, DirectPointe.
Earlier this month, Abridean announced a new version of AbrideanProvisor for Active Directory & Exchange. The service is designed to be an automated, best-practices approach to provisioning Exchange 2000/2003. The XML-based transactional provisioning system is designed to store, audit, report on and repeat (for system recovery) administrative transactions.
AbrideanProvisor for Active & Exchange consists of five key capabilities, according to Abridean:
- Automated User Provisioning designed to provide an error-free approach to user changes, adds and deletes in Active Directory and Exchange environments.
- Delegated Administration designed to enable delegation of administrative tasks for secure end-user provisioning with central administrative control.
- Scalability designed to support any Active Directory & Exchange deployment strategy including those of global data centers.
- Secure Policy Enforcement designed to provide an administration policy framework that ensures all provisioning events are executed consistently.
- Service Management designed to support the shift towards an IT services model that defines and measures service levels
Abridean reports that its users are coming from two camps. Enterprises migrating to a new messaging system that see an opportunity to start with a clean slate and accept new disciplines such as provisioning. The second is companies that have already migrated to Exchange 2000 and know what it’s like to manage Exchange without a provisioning tool.
Since provisioning is new for most customers, Abridean doesn’t have to unseat a legacy service. “Enterprise aren’t running away from anything, they are running to something to meet a more robust level of activity,” Abridean chief operating officer, Alex Walker told ASPnews.
Provisor attempts to eliminates the following Exchange user management issues, Abridean said:
- Provisor’s package-based provisioning provides a simple approach for assigning and managing multiple configurations of applications. Package configurations can reflect unique requirements based on user role/job function, location/facility and device. Abridean reports that this best practices approach allows administrators to provide a specific user profile with default service parameters (i.e. mailboxes and data storage limits).
- Provisor’s delegation is designed to provide multiple levels of control and security. Provisor enables the creation of multiple roles that can be customized by function and scope. This allows the IT department to delegate privileges to local administrators, help desk or nonIT business unit resources.
- Designed to reduce an organization’s Exchange administration costs, Provisor’s Web interface attempts to make administration tasks such as adding and configuring new users, resetting passwords, managing Active Directory and Exchange user profiles, and changing mailbox sizes foolproof, secure steps that can be performed by staff that do not possess high-level Exchange administration expertise.
- Provisor’s automated Active Directory/E2K search engine allows administrators to find users, contacts and groups that match certain criteria. Potential searches include finding disabled accounts, accounts forwarding e-mail to other e-mail addresses, accounts hidden from the Global address list, accounts with irregular e-mail retention policies and accounts created before or after certain dates.
Abridean’s customers include Sprint, Divine and AT&T Canada. Walker said things are heating up in the provisioning space as end-clients’ needs become more sophisticated. “We are seeing a level of activity we haven’t seen in a while.”
Abridean is listed by ASPnews as a Top 30 Service Enabler.
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