1. Solution Provider Delivers Flexible
Policy Solution with Cloud-Based
“Azure is a game-changer. Software
Partner: FullArmor
Web Site: www.fullarmor.com
development becomes more efficient,
Partner Size: 25 employees and the cost of delivering software to
Country or Region: United States
Industry: Professional services—
customers is reduced by an order of
Software engineering magnitude.”
Danny Kim, Chief Technology Officer, FullArmor
Partner Profile
FullArmor is a Boston-based
solution provider that uses FullArmor needed a cloud-based computing platform to optimize its
Microsoft® technologies to
PolicyPortal product, which customers use to manage networks that
provide organizations with
enterprise-level policy and include PCs outside of Active Directory® domains. The company
security solutions. The company
decided to port its application to the Azure™ Services Platform―a
has 25 employees.
comprehensive Microsoft services platform for cloud computing. The
Software and Services
flexible, scalable solution can be deployed easily, so FullArmor
Software-Plus-Services
− Azure Services Platform customers can access PolicyPortal faster and benefit from extended
− Windows Azure
endpoint policy management features.
− Microsoft .NET Services
− Microsoft SQL Services
Technologies
Business Needs targets large organizations such
FullArmor helps large as Boeing, the Federal Bureau of
Active Directory
organizations manage their IT Investigation, Eli Lilly, Wal-Mart,
Group Policy
user policy and endpoint security and Bank of America, and it has
Microsoft Application
with solutions based on a customer base of more than 5
Virtualization
Microsoft® products and million users and 1,500
Microsoft ASP.NET
technologies, including the Active organizations worldwide.
Microsoft .NET Framework
Directory® service, Group Policy,
Windows CardSpace
and the Windows PowerShell™ One of the company’s solutions
command-line interface. is PolicyPortal, which was
For more information on the originally developed in 2005 to
Azure Services Platform, please A Boston-based Microsoft Gold help organizations manage and
visit www.azure.com Certified Partner, FullArmor protect PCs both inside and

2. outside Active Directory domains. cloud services, or power new move the application quickly
The application—designed with cloud-based applications and because our original version of
tools and technologies such as services. By moving to Azure, PolicyPortal was written purely in
Microsoft ASP.NET, the FullArmor was able to reduce the managed code using ASP.NET.
Microsoft .NET Framework, costs of customer provisioning As a result, about 80 percent of
Microsoft SQL Server® 2005 data and meet their growing the code could be migrated
management software, and infrastructure requirements on without any changes being
Group Policy objects—generated a an as-needed basis. PolicyPortal required in order to work in the
lot of interest from customers. uses Web services to Azure environment,” says Kim.
However, the solution was automatically enforce Group
designed to be hosted, so it took Policy settings on machines that The government of Ethiopia is
a long time to set up with hosting are temporarily or permanently diligently working to deploy
service providers. This led to disconnected from Active PolicyPortal along with new
higher infrastructure costs and Directory. laptops to 30,000 teachers. If
delays in closing agreements with this program deems successful,
customers. With PolicyPortal, organizations it hopes to be able to expand its
maintain network security by scope and reach up to 250,000
“We did not want to get into the extending their directory-based teachers in the future. The
hosting business ourselves, and policies over the Internet. A small Ethiopian ministry of education
there were elements of the piece of software resides on the will use PolicyPortal to centrally
solution that were too complex to client PC to communicate with manage the PCs, performing
deliver to generic hosting the PolicyPortal application. tasks such as authenticating
providers,” says Danny Kim, Then, from a central location, individual teachers using
Chief Technology Officer for administrators can manage PCs; Windows CardSpace™ identity
FullArmor. “As a traditional set up user policies; distribute selectors, distributing
hosted IT application, PolicyPortal applications and updates; antivirus/patch policies, and
would require a lot of resources monitor the health of specific managing PC inventories.
to install and manage. What we PCs; manage PC inventories; and Software distribution will be
really needed was a cloud-based perform security procedures handled by using Microsoft
platform to simplify application such as remote data wipes in the Application Virtualization, which
delivery, but at the time cloud event that a PC is lost or stolen. employs an efficient system for
computing was still in its infancy Through the use of the centrally deploying applications
and did not meet the needs of our Microsoft .NET Workflow Service in a country with an
product requirement. So we and Microsoft .NET Service Bus, underdeveloped Internet
decided to sit on the technology administrative tasks are infrastructure.
and see what would develop.” performed automatically, which
minimizes or eliminates the need Benefits
Solution for intervention by the users of FullArmor used the Azure
FullArmor became an early the targeted PCs. Services Platform to create a
adopter of the Azure™ Services highly flexible and scalable Web-
Platform from Microsoft. Azure FullArmor started work on the based application that is easy to
provides an Internet-based new version of PolicyPortal in deploy and manage. Because of
operating system, development mid-2008 and took less than two the open Internet standards used
tools, and Web services that help months to migrate the existing in the platform, PolicyPortal can
developers to augment existing application to the Azure Services operate with a range of devices
applications and services with Platform. “We were able to and non-Windows® operating
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2008

3. systems. By adopting the Azure Extends investment in development work.
Services Platform, FullArmor can Applications that have already
take advantage of its previous been deployed can take
development efforts and extend advantage of Azure. “With
them to cloud-based computing. Azure, we took a traditional IT
“Azure is a game-changer,” says application and moved it to the
Kim. “Software development cloud environment with very little
becomes more efficient, and the pain,” says Kim. “At the same
cost of delivering software to time, this project did not prevent
customers is reduced by an order us from addressing the
of magnitude.” traditional IT market. Instead, the
Provides high flexibility and scalability. cloud becomes an extension of
“By migrating PolicyPortal to the the enterprise IT environment.”
Azure Services Platform, we are
able to dramatically reduce the
delivery time for the application,”
says Kim. “The Ethiopian
deployment is scheduled to begin
in February 2009, and we’re
planning to do massive
deployments of between 5,000
and 10,000 laptops at a time. This
aggressive deployment schedule
would be virtually impossible with
a more traditional application.
With Azure, we can get our
product to market faster, and our
customers can enjoy the benefits
of PolicyPortal sooner.”
Interoperates with a range of technologies.
Azure provides the ability to
create connected Internet
applications regardless of the
platform with which developers
are working. “The fact that Azure
is based on the Microsoft .NET
Framework gives us a huge
advantage,” says Kim. “Any
application or device that can
communicate with a Web service
can be supported, which means
that we can also deploy
PolicyPortal in mixed-enterprise
environments.”
This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR
IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY.
Document published October 2008