FleetDM, a provider of open-source mobile device management solutions, is launching a new cross-platform programmable device management solution designed to give medium-to-large organizations control of remote workstation security with GitOps and workflow automation.
The San Francisco-based company bills the mobile device management (MDM) solution as more accessible and cost-effective, but also scalable and customizable for the specific needs of an organization without having to pay additional fees.
According to FleetDM, the MDM solution has out-of-the-box support for macOS, Windows, Linux and ChromeOS, and it can be configured to share data across teams and can be integrated with third-party platforms and DevOps processes via a REST API. That allows IT engineers and admins to run queries, access data and customize application development and delivery processes.
In addition, FleetDM’s new solution provides bidirectional transparency so end users have visibility into what is being monitored to help establish employee trust.
The company says the GitOps-driven consensus model enables close collaboration among security, developer and operations teams while ensuring a secure roll out of dedicated write operations.
The Fleet MDM solution also features bring-your-own capabilities for scripting and packaging tools to enable IT to use the tools the regular tools to ensure organizational requirements are met.
A closed-loop feedback on deployments means IT never needs to worry about whether the configuration made it to the machine, the company says.
According to FleetDM, an intuitive dashboard features one-click visibility and control, enabling IT to manage devices from any location or platform. It enables automatic enrollment of new employees with Okta or any identity provider, IT management of software updates and patching with any software manager (Puppet, Munki, Chef, etc.), disk encryption (for macOS) using Apple FileVault, remote locks and wipes and includes all of the CIS critical security controls for Mac and Windows.
The company also says the solution supports multiple user accounts and in-depth activity auditing so teams can share data across different departments without security risks or privacy concerns.
In a statement, FleetDM co-founder and CTO Zach Wasserman says Fleet is built for programmatic automation, and automating audit logs with third-party platforms like Splunk becomes easier with Fleet.
“In addition, other platforms let you push updates to computers and turn on disk encryption, but if you want to see whether it actually worked you can’t – there’s no feedback mechanism for that and no way to see what’s actually happening,” Wasserman says. “With Fleet, you can say, ‘Turn on FileVault,’ and then run a query that says ‘how many computers have FileVault turned on?’ and you’ll see that it was 100% successful.”
According to the company, Fleet is based on the open source project osquery, co-developed in 2014 by Wasserman, then working at Meta. Wasserman co-founded Kolide in 2016 and created Fleet, an open source platform that made it easier for enterprises to use osquery. The Fleet community took over maintenance of the open source project in 2019, with Wasserman serving as lead maintainer. Wasserman partnered with FleetDM CEO Mike McNeil in 2020, announcing the transition to a stand-alone entity in November of that year.
In a statement, McNeil says Fleet is built for results and gives both security and IT teams the tools and features they need.
“We empathize with the leaders we speak to everyday who are stuck having to choose between out-of-the-box legacy MDMs or building their own on-top of a hodgepodge of unsupported open-source libraries,” McNeil says. “We built Fleet to bridge this chasm. We first built a battle-tested open-source platform that security teams trust, and then layered on top of it the configuration and APIs that IT teams want to see. We see the future of IT being unlocked by a devops mindset, and we aim to be at the forefront of that revolution.”
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