Accelerate large-scale migration to hosted cloud services

The Parallels Automation Customer Directory Integration Module accelerates the migration of large numbers of internal users to cloud-based Windows services, increasing ease of use for end users and decreasing your administrative costs.

Increase ease of use for end users

In companies that use an on-premise Active Directory, end users have to maintain their contact details in two places: one for internal IT accounts and one for cloud service accounts. This duplication of effort is both time-consuming and error prone. The Customer Directory Integration Module eliminates this duplication by automatically synchronizing any updates that users apply locally — including password changes — with their account in the cloud. This way, their information in Microsoft Outlook and their Microsoft Office Communicator address books are always up to date.

Decrease administrative costs

Customer Directory Integration automatically synchronizes the local Active Directory service with the hosted Active Directory managed by Parallels Operations Automation, ensuring that both are up to date. It also provisions a default set of messaging and collaboration services for new users, eliminating the need for administrators to manually provision and configure individual accounts and associated services. In this way, it accelerates their ability to migrate customers to new cloud services.

How it works

The Customer Directory Integration Module consists of two parts:

• A downloadable Synchronization Agent, which resides in the customer’s on-premise network. This agent monitors the local Active Directory for changes and sends those changes to Parallels Operations Automation through a secure channel.
• A Customer Directory Integration Web service, which resides in your data center. This component applies changes it receives from the Synchronization Agent to the hosted Active Directory and subscribed services.