Enterprise mobility solutions

Could Cloud be the Answer to Enterprise Mobility?

Many trends have forced a paradigm shift on enterprise IT organisations: the proliferation of mobile devices, widespread cheap and fast internet access and the growing ‘bring your own device’ (BYOD) or ‘work from anywhere’ mindset.

It seems like just yesterday that IT organisations were enforcing standard operating environments (SOEs) and centralising the management of devices to lock down permitted applications, functionality and data access. How the pendulum has swung!

Now operating environments are anything but standard. IT organisations have no choice but to provide secure access to business systems and data, enabling productivity without compromising security.

But how do you effectively manage organisational risk?

Security for mobile access to corporate systems is required at four levels:

• User
• Device
• Application
• Data.

How each of these is managed depends on your infrastructure and tools. A good place to start is by asking the following questions:

• Are your users currently managed using defined ICT service management processes, with the ability to define policy-based permissions?
• Do your users access corporate systems using their own devices, or only corporately owned devices? What devices are supported?
• Are your applications hosted internally, in a datacentre, or in the cloud?
• At what level of granularity do you need to protect your data?
• Do you have a platform in place that supports mobility solutions, or do you need to explore the suitability of different platforms for your organisation?

Depending on your answers to these and your current infrastructure, the transition to offering mobility solutions may require preliminary work. For example, rather than undertaking extensive work to provide secure remote access to on-premise equipment with installation-based licensing, it might be more cost- and time-effective to move to a cloud solution with a consumption-based licensing model.

Once you have defined your mobility objectives, a structured approach to identifying the users, devices and applications to be supported will ensure that you can effectively plan and implement your mobility strategy, putting in place the policies, processes, tools and infrastructure required to enable new and efficient ways to access information.

At Data^#3, we’ve identified five distinct domains which must be addressed as part of your solution to successfully manage mobile devices within a corporate environment. These are ICT Service Management, Security, Device Management, Application Access and Datacentre Infrastructure. If you need a hand with the process of defining your needs and identifying appropriate solutions, a Data^#3 mobility solutions assessment considers your current state against 10 categories based on best practice standards for network infrastructure and IT teams, to help you start planning.

With platform planning in place, your rollout of mobility solutions can be progressive – as one application or data set is ready for access, it can be offered across approved networks to authorised users and devices.

For more information, visit: https://data3.com/solutions/mobility/