BUSINESS INTERVIEW
Cisco pushes BYOD button
Cisco is driving for greater awareness around BYOD, mobility and collaboration, according to Chintan Patel, Head of Business Development.
O
ne of the biggest trends to affect organisations of all sizes is the
need for employees to access work-related resources using their mobile devices. The challenges start at the policy level where many companies are still in protecting the network mode. “While some of the hurdles of connecting, securing and managing mobile devices have been solved with recent advances in the Cisco BYOD portfolio, the channel needs to consider the entire series of implications that face end customers,” said Patel.
He categorises these implications into three main areas. Firstly, user experience and utility challenges. “The main challenges would include video, intelligent applications, bandwidth availability and roaming,” said Patel. “Companies that either sponsor or embrace tablets are certainly looking to maximize their RoI from those devices and make employees as productive as possible. The importance of a robust wireless infrastructure is paramount.”
Next, the network needs to provide a strong and secure connection. “Obtaining a secure connection and provisioning the right
access criteria can be one of the biggest challenges IT will have to solve with tablets, particularly when dealing with unmanaged devices,” stated Patel. “The main security challenges would include profiling and posture, policy assignment, off-premise access and threat defence.”
Thirdly, Patel points to the manageability challenges. “Typical IT departments see their resources quickly drained from the increasing needs for device management and troubleshooting,” he said. “In many cases, especially before the BYOD era, those demands could exceed 25 and even 30 per cent of IT budgets. Areas of focus would be troubleshooting, capacity planning and guest access.”
All of this offers channel partners a multitude of opportunities around helping the customer navigate the best path to BYOD, whether it’s the early stages of embracing the idea with consultancy or full blown deployment with infrastructure and technology rollout. “Of utmost importance for a channel provider will be to ensure they are proposing a solution that supports the
multi-vendor environment they have today, but also one that continues to evolve as the market changes,” added Patel. “New platforms and devices are appearing on the market at a staggering rate, so backing the right communications platform and architecture becomes critical and will ensure that the channel provider becomes a trusted partner.”
Raising awareness In its drive to raise awareness around BYOD, mobility and collaboration, one of Cisco’s most recent activities has been around its Jabber announcement. Cisco Jabber enables users to be more productive from anywhere on any device. As a new UC application Cisco Jabber lets users access presence, instant messaging (IM), voice, video, voice messaging, desktop sharing and conferencing across a broad set of devices and operating systems. “Channel partners now have the opportunity to offer solutions that take into account years of customer feedback in terms of features, capabilities and deployment models,” claimed Patel.
The influx of tablets and other unmanaged devices in the enterprise creates a complex set of problems. These problems can’t
Chintan Patel
holistically be addressed without an architectural approach. “Most solutions are primarily point solutions for wireless only and ignore most other challenges,” observed Patel. “We need to think about role-based access for wired, wireless and VPN, while performing device fingerprinting out of band. It also addresses critical security concerns such as what happens when a device is infected with viruses, when the device is lost or stolen and corporate data is compromised, or when the device is upgraded.”
One of the largest
challenges with any BYOD implementation is ensuring protection of corporate data. If a corporate asset such as a laptop is used to access business applications and data, typically that asset is tightly controlled by IT and subject to more restrictive usage policies. “Some industries need to comply with confidentiality regulations like HIPAA, security compliance regulations like PCI, or more general security practice regulations like Sarbanes-
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Oxley and others,” said Patel. “Companies need to show compliance is possible with BYOD adoption which can be more challenging than with a corporate-owned and managed device.”
An employee-owned tablet or smartphone is probably being routinely used for personal access and business applications. Cloud-based file sharing and storage services are convenient for personal data but can be potential sources of leakage for confidential corporate data.
“IT must have a strategy for protecting business data on all devices whether corporate managed or employee self- supported and managed,” commented Patel. “This may include a secure business partition on the device that acts as a container of corporate data that can be tightly controlled. It may also include the need for a Virtual Desktop Infrastructure (VDI) application to allow access to sensitive or confidential data without storing the data on the device. Understanding all of these implications will be critical for the channel.” n
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