Is Your Mobility Policy Lockdown or Wide Open?

It is already happening! Consumer devices are improving faster than business specific devices. The iPhone has completely eclipsed the Blackberry as the mobile device of choice for the business professional. The market has made the decision, and the entire Information Technology world is racing to catch up.

People gravitate toward the technology that lets them get their job done the fastest and easiest way possible, and with the ease of use and large variety of apps available, smartphones and tablets are now an essential part of how people work. So let’s embrace and extend this trend, and while doing so make sure we close some of the potential compliance and security holes these devices have exposed.

Organizations have to decide what the official company position is going to be about how people should be able to use these devices, then once that is in place they can deploy technology to enforce that policy.

Different industries and companies have different requirements, and even though there may be workarounds to enable security and maximize uptime, sometimes there is just no alternative to a complete lockdown. But there certainly are gradations on the spectrum between Wide Open acceptance and complete Lockdown.

The Wide Open acceptance policy is what is in place at many companies. This happens because tablets and smartphones have apps on them that use the features set up for remote workers to access their email or VPN in to the network.

Wide Open Policy

1. Mobile device apps use existing remote access hooks.

• Mail, calendar, contact uses Exchange connectors.
• VPN uses mobile device VPN client.
• Browsers access any company web servers.
• VDI clients using VMware or Citrix.

1. Internal wireless access available to mobile devices.
2. Cellphone voice used when on site and remotely as preferred device.

The Lockdown policy is in place at organization that have security compliance concerns due to being regulated by PCI, HIPAA, FERPA, CIPA, and other personal and business information security requirements. The information is protected, but with the drawback of lower productivity.

Lockdown Policy

1. IT specified devices only allowed.
2. On site access only.
3. All other access prohibited.

So why not just settle for Lockdown mode and be done with it? Because it is unrealistic, uncompetitive, unfriendly, and uninformed. The customer service, productivity and competitive benefits from having a well thought out Mobility Strategy are too big to ignore.

Users have just started to scratch the surface of the ability of mobile devices. There are capabilities coming in the next couple of years that will turbocharge the acceptance of these devices. And if you want to enter into the realm of attainable science fiction, plan for when your mobile device is implanted and integrated into your body — that will happen sooner than you think.

Organizations require a toolkit to adopt different elements of infrastructure, security, management and support to enable the right mix of productivity, information availability, and control for any organization.

With the different elements of the mobility puzzle fleshed out, we can define more granular policies than merely Locked Down or Wide Open.