You may be aware that Active Directory (AD) recently celebrated another anniversary, but did you know that Quest has been at the forefront of AD innovation since the platform’s inception? It’s true: Quest was a partner in the Joint Development Program with Microsoft back when Active Directory was being developed in 1999. We recognized the potential of this revolutionary technology and began developing tools to enhance its capabilities.
Today, our 25+ years of Active Directory expertise is double that of any other vendor. Indeed, Quest is the recognized market leader in Active Directory and Entra ID migration, modernization, cybersecurity, compliance and disaster recovery. For instance, Gartner has recognized Quest as a representative vendor in multiple areas: identity threat detection and response (IDTR), identity security hygiene, and migrations. What’s more, Gartner lists Quest as an example vendor twice as often as any other company in its most recent IAM Best Practices for Active Directory research.
But we’re not resting on our laurels. Here are some highlights of how we’re continuing to drive innovation as we empower customers to modernize and secure their on-premises and hybrid Active Directory ecosystems.
Quest’s innovation strategy
Quest has more than 300 people across R&D today — almost as many people as other vendors have total employees. With that strong expertise, we have the staff necessary to continue investing heavily in our strategy of modernizing and securing hybrid and cloud identities.
“Unlike other vendors, Quest is constantly improving its solutions; they are not stagnant.”
— Phillip Palha, Senior Manager for Active Directory Delivery at Bell Canada (Read full case study)
Key areas in which we are making significant investments include AI integrations and our SaaS platform.
Welcome to the age of Quest AI
Applying AI to engineering has been a game-changer for Quest. Indeed, generative AI is now suggesting code sections automatically in at least 30% of cases, significantly boosting development productivity by speeding routine coding tasks. Moreover, our AI-powered features require less new code and are more intelligent and adaptable. As a result, our AI initiatives are actively reshaping the way we think about product development.
However, Quest’s use of AI is by no means limited to R&D practices. We’re building AI enhancements across the Quest cloud platform that will help IT professionals work smarter and more productively. Many of these AI capabilities are already released: For example, Quest is the first vendor to deliver AI-powered migration assistants and the first to provide a Microsoft Security Copilot plugin for hybrid AD security. Many more are on our roadmap. Rest assured, we are committed to ensuring that all our enhancements are not just intelligent but useful and worthwhile!
The Quest unified security and modernization platform for hybrid AD and Entra ID
Another key strategic investment area for Quest is SaaS. We launched our first SaaS solution way back in 2010; since then, we've migrated over 100 petabytes of data, backed up over 37 billion Entra ID objects over 12 months, and helped customers reduce their identity attack surface by over 99%.
Our unified cloud platform covers both modernization and security, including threat prevention, threat detection, incident response and disaster recovery. No other vendor offers all this value in a single platform. This consolidation of solutions simplifies hybrid AD security and modernization by equipping operators with better tools and resources, improving effectiveness while reducing the need for extensive training.
The Quest unified cloud platform recently launched two powerful market-first solutions: Security Guardian Shields Up and Disaster Recovery for Identity. These products empower organizations to dramatically strengthen not just cybersecurity but cyber resilience — enabling them to effectively shut down threats and to recover faster when an incident does occur. With the cost of downtime now exceeding $1M/hour for some enterprises, Quest’s market-first innovation is invaluable.
Commitment to security assurances and software supply chain best practices
By choosing Quest, you far more than market-leading functionality — you get a partner with mature supply chain risk management practices. In particular, Quest:
- Uses a Zero Trust R&D architecture
- Performs no development in countries of security concern
- Has achieved 100% compliance with NIST SP800-218 (based on Coalfire’s assessment of 12 US Federal/DoD preferred products)
- Has earned multiple certifications, including SOC 2 Type 2 and ISO 27001, 27017 and 27018
Additionally, to help prevent issues like the devastating SolarWinds and Veeam incidents, Quest:
- Uses an airgap-secured assembly process that exceeds industry standards
- Puts all new suppliers through an extensive trustworthiness assessment
- Tightly controls access to the product in each step in the supply chain
- Strictly limits access to sensitive areas of the business, including product development
Stay tuned for more!
In the coming days, we’ll be launching a new blog series showcasing our continuing innovation designed to address today’s most pressing IT concerns. In particular, we’ll be covering our investments in:
- Zero impact modernization for identities, data and devices
- Outcome-driven migrations with no project left behind
- Identity threat prevention, detection and response
- Secure and flexible disaster recovery
