The explosion of mobile devices in the workforce presents both opportunities and challenges. On the plus side, mobility can dramatically increase productivity and improve business results through anywhere-anytime access to communications, personal data and corporate information. Achieving posi-tive results, however, requires midsized businesses to create a mobile-ready infrastructure, a task that varies considerably from how mobility was handled in the past.

How It Used to Be: Lockdown-Supported DevicesIf companies gave any thought to mobile security at all, they often supplied key employees with corporate-owned mobile devices that were easy to secure and manage, such as RIM BlackBerry devices or laptops. This approach may no longer be viable. Today’s workers likely prefer a range of smartphones and tablets running Android™, iOS, Symbian, Windows® Mobile and other operating systems, and their devices are doubling for both business and personal use.

How It Is Today: a Checklist for Mobile-Ready InfrastructureToday, the key challenge to creating a mobile-ready infrastructure relates to balancing secure management with employee productivity and creativity:

• Divide business from personal use: To enable employees to select their devices of choice without compromising security and management, Dell recommends a policy of “separate but secure.” This means leveraging centralized device management solutions that quarantine business data and applications on smart devices, without interfering with personal information and applications. The advantage is that IT can control issues such as passcode authentication, encryption and application use for the business side of the device without forcing such policies on personal use.

• Secure each link in the mobility chain: A mobile-ready infrastructure must be secure at every level of data delivery— on internal systems, at the network perimeter, during data transport and on the device. Although this broad approach extends beyond the purely mobile, it makes clear that mobile

By Tom Farre

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security entails more than securing a smartphone or tablet. A smartphone, for instance, is an access point to behind the corporate-network fi rewall. A mobile-ready infrastructure includes back-end systems and their controls, authentication of information traveling outside the perimeter, and eff ective transport security. There’s also the need for security on the device itself, such as encryption, application password enforcement, antimalware, and remote erase if a device is lost or stolen. The key is to ensure that once corporate data gets out to the device, it’s as secure as it would be behind the fi rewall.

The Mobile Balancing Act.Five key steps in developing a well-planned strategy for securely managing mobile device proliferation.

MOBILITY

• Reject ad hoc management: Ad hoc management that relies on internal capabilities of specifi c devices adds complexity to the mobile infrastructure: For example, policy controls and built-in encryption can vary even among devices running the same operating system. The best management solutions remove these variables from the equation. Otherwise, IT has to research the specifi cs of every device staff ers bring into the offi ce before deciding whether to block or support it.

• explore mobile device management (MDM) solutions: MDM solutions that support multiple devices and operating systems can get IT out of the research business. Solutions can manage either the whole device or just the business side, consistently and in accord with company policies. The right solution provides insight into who is connecting to the network and what they’re connecting with, and it can set policies on most devices users bring to the table. For example, with MDM software from Good™ Technology, “no data gets in or out of the business environment that

Components of Mobile Device Management Solutions

Checklist: Mobile-Ready Infrastructure

Device management: • hardware• software• real-time updates

Performance monitoring: • servers and devices• load balancing

Policy management: • security• use and compliance

email deployment: • user provisioning • migrations • device reprovisioning

application management: • control footprint• application deployment• updates/upgrades

√ Divide business from personal use√ Secure each link in the mobility chain√ Reject ad hoc management√ Explore mobile device management solutions√ Strategize to optimize total cost of ownership

Tom Farre is a freelance journalist who has been covering the computer industry for

more than 20 years.

isn’t controlled by policy,” says John Herrema, senior VP of corporate strategy at Good Technology. The solution can manage mobile use with fi ne granularity, with functions such as blocking cut-and-paste to prevent users from copying data from business email into personal applications.

• Strategize to optimize TCO: Remember that it’s still early in the mobility revolution. The key step for SMBs today is to begin planning a mobility strategy that considers the requirements of a mobile-ready infrastructure.

Some expertise will likely come from staff , some can be provided by consultants, and cloud mobility services can augment on-premises resources. With careful planning up front, you’re more likely to end up with a scalable infrastructure that will be manageable and secure—a key to using mobility to increase productivity, reduce operating costs and boost the bottom line.

“ A mobile-ready infrastructure must be secure at every level of data delivery.”

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