Edgile
Leveraging Microsoft Solutions to Drive Alignment between Business and Security

The rapid changes in information security and data protection technologies have deepened the need for a proactive threat-based security model which is aligned with the business and its rapidly changing environment. Organizations require the necessary funding to support these efforts and implement effective strategies for managing risk as information security plays a more important role in enabling business. However, most organizations are still littered by security point solutions deployed as reactions to events as opposed to a proactive, effective security strategy. Edgile, an Austin, TX based company, takes a new approach to security governance by moving an organization’s information security group from a risk-centric function to a business-aligned capability. The firm provides integrated solutions using Microsoft technologies— System Center, Forefront Identity Manager (FIM), BHOLD, and Active Directory Rights Management Services (AD RMS). They partner with the Microsoft Security Center of Excellence to deliver secure Microsoft solutions to organizations.

"The relationship is focused on core security areas that enable Edgile to bring practical solutions in solving strategic problems and helping Microsoft customers to fully leverage their technology infrastructures," says Don Elledge, the CEO of Edgile. The firm’s services focus on security strategy, identity and access management, data and privacy protection, cloud security, and governance risk and compliance (GRC).

Edgile realizes companies must be able to identify the users and authorize their access to data in a growing diversity of IT services, both internal and external to the enterprise. The growing importance of identity is also being driven by GRC requirements to operate within the changing regulations. Edgile helps businesses re-engineer and streamline identity management (IDM) business processes to drive efficiencies and improve internal controls using ADFS, Azure AD, Windows Right Management Services (RMS), and Microsoft Identity Lifecycle Manager. “We help organizations understand how to leverage technology and strengthen the links between identity access management (IAM) and GRC to automate controls and support risk and compliance processes,” adds Elledge.

He notes, “Microsoft’s approach is not only to be a service provider in the cloud (SaaS/IaaS), but also operate the solutions in the cloud in a highly secured manner.”

Following the same path, Edgile leverages cloud-based security models to enhance business processes by increasing application security and also offers hybrid identity management services as companies start to migrate into the cloud. “That’s really where Microsoft is a leader and we’re lucky to be a partner with them to help their biggest and largest customers make that migration in a secured manner.”

Offering services to the Fortune 500 (including Microsoft itself) Edgile's success stories are trendsetters. In an implementation highlight, a retail client with stores located globally turned to Edgile when they needed to support a 10x expansion of end users with a centralized IDM solution to support authentication and access to a number of corporate systems. Edgile deployed a hybrid cloud solution that kept a large number of identities in the cloud and could address users’ self-service capabilities. Thereafter, strong authentication was provided to strategic systems over public networks using Microsoft technologies, hybrid cloud capabilities, federation capabilities, and mobility suite. “Within a number of months, the firm was able to onboard, connect, and deliver services to a hundred thousand additional users in their enterprise securely,” explains Elledge.

The relationship is focused on core areas that enable Edgile to bring practical solutions to solve problems and help Microsoft customers to fully leverage their technology infrastructures.

Edgile’s cutting-edge roadmap is lined around delivering higher quality security services with relevance to the business transformation that is taking place and provide the correct answers to the marketplace. Elledge wants to focus on the business-aligned solutions approach as it develops alignment between business and security, communicating the value of security to impact the bottom line in a positive manner. Thriving to be bedrock in the security space, Edgile wants to support its customers in reshaping their security models to support the increasingly dynamic business environment.