Google Apps Security for the Distributed Enterprise

Noel Leeming Group Limited Choses CloudLock to Secure Google Docs in Multiple Domains

Noel Leeming Group Limited is New Zealand’s leading nationwide chain, currently consisting of over 60 Noel Leeming and 30 Bond & Bond retail stores that strive to offer a superior standard of service and a broad range of branded consumer technology, appliances, PC and laptops.

With its significant retail footprint, Noel Leeming Group is uniquely positioned to offer its customers new technology-based products such as liquid crystal display (LCD) and plasma TVs, cellular phones and services, digital cameras and convergence technologies. In addition to its retail stores, both Noel Leeming and Bond & Bond have an online offering where customers can research and buy products over the Internet

Business Problem

Noel Leeming Group began moving to Google Docs in early 2011, and searched for a solution to provide a layer of security, governance and control over their data stored in the cloud.

As a retail chain with multiple brands, the company organized their users into several Google domains to match their retail brands. This allowed for flexibility in managing users based on their organizational structure, but also created an IT challenge.

“When we migrated to Google Apps, we organized our users into multiple domains to align with our organizational structure and store brands. With all our users assigned to different domains, I needed a centralized dashboard to view and manage all the users and all the documents for our company,” said Darrin Harper, IT Manager for Noel Leeming Group Limited.

Centrally Managing Corporate Data in Multiple Domains

“CloudLock provides us with a unified dashboard giving us visibility into all users and documents. It gives me a consolidated view that lets me manage and control permissions and resolve exposures for documents in all subdomains,” said Harper.

By selecting CloudLock, distributed enterprises get the ability to centrally manage all corporate data in subdomains while delegating tasks to departments and organizational units. With CloudLock they can:

• Centrally Manage All Corporate Data in Subdomains – CloudLock has the option of defining a “scan scope” to include all subdomains in the organization. This approach allows companies to view, manage and control all users and documents from a single dashboard.
• Assign Additional CloudLock Users – By creating additional CloudLock users IT can share and delegate administrative tasks to non-domain administrators.
• Delegate to data owners – CloudLock provides full visibility to end users by classifying document exposure and showing how the documents they own are being shared.

A Security Wrapper for Google Docs

With the implementation of Google Docs and the fast adoption throughout the organization’s brands and stores, CloudLock provides a much needed security wrapper for Google documents.

CloudLock gives Google Apps domain administrators an effective way to manage documents, sites, collections and users in the domain as well as documents shared from outside the domain. The dashboard provides an easy way to monitor and resolve all exposures.

“CloudLock provides us with a much-needed solution to stay on top of document exposures; especially public exposures. CloudLock gives me the control and confidence that our documents are protected,” said Harper.

Monitoring and Alerts For Google Docs

Exposure classification and data exposure reports for all the domains under CloudLock’s management give the domain administrator a powerful tool to easily monitor and stay on top of all security issues and concerns.

CloudLock provides ongoing monitoring and alerting or documents created and shared in all the subdomains. The email alerts and reports list newly exposed documents and changes in permissions for existing documents.

“I find the reports and alerts extremely useful. They provide me an effective way to see all changes and make sure no sensitive documents become exposed,” said Harper.