Albacore Cloud Environment – ACE

Albacore Cloud Environment (ACE) provides advanced management, productivity and collaboration tools for business devices as well as unlimited support for users of those devices.

Line of business applications residing on existing on-premise or Albacore Private Cloud servers are delivered to devices using Albacore Cloud Remote (ACR). ACR increases security and productivity by whitelisting devices and allowing full application functionality while leveraging the full resource of the user workstation.

From the point of user login, ACE provides authentication of a user to company resources via cloud-based authentication. That authentication checks the security of the connection the user has, the status of the device they are connecting from, and prevents or denies access to the user based on the configured policy. In the same package, ACE also provides the key tools users need to get work done:

• Hosted email with archiving and legal hold functionality enabled
• Microsoft Office applications can be installed on devices and is available via Office on the web
• OneDrive to sync company data repositories to user devices
• SharePoint to share files with colleagues and customers and allow real-time multi-user editing of those files
• Teams to provide chat and presence as well as further enhancements to real-time collaboration inside and outside the organisation
• Unlimited helpdesk support via telephone, remote and onsite support for the primary device and the functionality of each user is included, with a maximum 8 business hour onsite response with parts and labour included on desktops, up to the level of a replacement machine of equivalent specification commissioned onsite by an Albacore engineer.

Making company information available from anywhere facilitates unmatched productivity and collaboration opportunities, but adds significant security challenges too. That’s why ACE has additional enhancements to email filtering through the addition of sophisticated phishing protection and attachment quarantine functions. User logins are primarily secured Conditional Access. This feature blocks access from any unknown device using Multi-Factor Authentication (MFA) and Conditional Access so as well as providing their usual username and password a user also needs to provide a real-time code from an alternate source to authenticate their log in. ACE moves security past MFA

Albacore’s bespoke monitoring and alerting tools and our managed anti-malware suite are included to ensure wide ranging and responsive actions are taken should a compromise or infection occur on a user system. Our update management tools ensure supported user devices install the latest Microsoft Operating System and Office security updates.

An additional tier of protection is included through Endpoint Detection Response (EDR). EDR works by collecting data from devices and reporting events or incidents to a central location. This data is analysed and correlated to provide insights about what is expected behaviour and what is unusual behaviour. Should unusual behaviour be detected, alerts are generated to Albacore and both pro-active and engineer led actions result. EDR acts on user devices to prevent the spread of malware or ransomware that may not be detected by anti-virus packages because of the rapid evolution of these kinds of attacks.

Data is further secured through compliance and data loss prevention tools, with rules configured to customer requirements. These rules ensure potential data breaches or unauthorised movement of company data is blocked or flagged as appropriate. Security policies are documented by the use of an Albacore Cloud Protection Premium policy, ensuring all current and future devices align with these agreed policy standards.

ACE draws on the strengths of Albacore’s many significant USP’s – we provide full onboarding of the system, full data transfer and testing. Our team create and administer users, groups, permissions, resources and maintain policies with ACE that mean company devices and company data remain managed and secure.

Albacore offer many services that compliment ACE such as firewall management, business wireless and network infrastructure support.

Albacore can offer convenient fixed monthly payments, and the ACE product is provided with a fixed annual cost per user which includes all functionality and unlimited support and administration.

Albacore already have customers that have freed themselves from on-premise servers using this contemporary method of working. They find it compliments their existing line of business applications in a future proofed way.

Feel free to contact us via our contact form and we will be happy to engage and consult with you to introduce ACE into your business.