In the world of technology, a lot can change in three years: storage becomes cheaper, servers become faster, the “next big thing” may shrink from sight and new paradigms emerge to take its place.
In the three years since BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) became a prominent part of the IT landscape, a lot has changed. Specifically, enterprises have learned three important things in those three years:
- When you limit BYOD to a specific set of devices, policies or applications, you also limit its effectiveness;
- Security doesn’t mean simply securing the device, but securing the data as well;
- Multi-user scenarios (i.e., multiple people using the same device) are something that businesses need to consider before they build their BYOD policy.
Today, enterprises are looking at BYOD through a wider and more experienced lens. Instead of focusing only on mobile device management (MDM), more CIOs are broadening their scope to enterprise mobility management (EMM), which looks to create a consistent, mobile worker experience beyond simply the device.
One of the leading forces in the new EMM movement is VMware’s Airwatch, a solution that creates a much-needed management layer to support consistent portals, policies and security across the mobile enterprise. With Airwatch, enterprises can control the mobile experience at a more granular level beyond devices to include types of data, specific applications and even select geographies.
In many ways, EMM is the logical evolution of BYOD—a kind of BYOD 2.0. Initially, BYOD was a user-driven movement that recognized the connection between mobility, productivity and device flexibility. But enterprises also needed to consider security, which meant setting controls and limits on mobile devices.
EMM allows enterprises to extend the best parts of BYOD—the flexibility and mobility—through initiatives such as a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI), while retaining more control over the data and applications. It’s essentially a win-win for both groups: users get a mobile experience that functions as a simple, single pane of glass from any device, and enterprises retain the control and security they need through pre-built and automatically provisioned workspaces and workflows.
EMM is valuable because it looks past the device to the individual using the device. For example, through a solution such as Airwatch, an employee in accounting would have a different workspace/workflow than someone in sales; they would have access to different data, different applications and, depending on the individual, different levels of authorization. This can be extended to different individuals on the same device; think of a retail store that might have multiple salespeople using the same tablet at various times, and you get the idea.
Like BYOD before it, EMM requires a clearly articulated mobility strategy that includes factors such as security policies, compliance requirements and legal issues. To help enterprises build that strategy, Rolta AdvizeX has created the EUC Advizer to answer questions such as:
- Where are our security vulnerabilities?
- How do we simplify/centralize the management of virtual desktops and multiple devices?
- How do we integrate mobile device management with a virtual desktop infrastructure?
The EUC Advizer can be a critical first step in building a more mobile enterprise. To learn more about EMM and what’s ahead for BYOD, contact your Rolta AdvizeX representative. We’ll educate you on what’s available on the market today from VMware and other leading vendors, and help keep you on track for the future. ▪