Mobile Device Inventory – the first step in
enterprise mobile management
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY
As phones and tablets overtake PCs as the most-often used means of connecting to company data
and apps, organizations’ Software Asset Management (SAM) programs need to evolve to manage
these devices and ensure that they are delivering value without introducing new risks.
Enterprise computing has evolved substantially over the past decade. In under 10 years, mobile devices – phones and tablets – have overtaken PCs and laptops as the most often used means of connecting to a company’s data and computing applications.
While the early mobile devices such as the Blackberry (affectionately known as the “Crackberry” due to the addictive nature of mobile email) were application-specific, the new generation of smartphones and mobile devices are beginning to take on applications that have largely been run from desktops and laptops in the past. Software Asset Management (SAM) has steadily
evolved in recent years to manage software on the desktop, datacenter and in the cloud, However, most organizations are yet to include these mobile devices (whether provided by the organization or not). Snow’s own research, conducted in the summer of 2015, found that more than 90% of organizations now provide employees with phones or tablets, yet 80% of those
same organizations’ software policies do not cover mobile devices.
Josh Epstein from EnterpriseAppsTech notes: “Enterprise mobile apps are no longer just for classic ‘mobile workers’. In fact, everyone now encounters work-related mobile moments as we navigate our workday. Office workers find moments walking down the hallway, sitting in meetings, or going to lunch. Healthcare professionals want access to application functionality as they see patients. Sales people access customer information while in the field. Manufacturing managers access inventory and scheduling systems while walking the floor. Insurance adjusters gather claims data while assessing damage in real time. And so on.”
So leaving the mobile estate unmanaged simply isn’t an option. But how do you start to take charge of the costs and risks?
INTRODUCTION
Just as there are different levels of maturity in terms of Software Asset Management – where an organization starts with creating a baseline of the assets deployed and an understanding of how they are being used, through to scrutinizing whether or not current license entitlements are being leveraged to the full and then
taking an in-depth look at ongoing vendor management – a staged approach to managing mobile devices and applications also makes a lot of sense.
A maturity path for managing mobile devices in a SAM context might look something like this:
DEFINING THE MATURITY MODEL FOR MANAGING MOBILE DEVICES
MOBILE DEVICE MATURITY MODEL
MOBILE
INVENTORY
LICENSE MANAGEMENT
MOBILE
Begin developing your inventory of connected smartphones and tablets as the starting point.
Cross-check licensing across mobile, enterprise and desktop to
ensure compliance and full value from entitlement rights.
Take full control over mobile devices, including in-field resets, update, and wipes of all enterprise
data and applications.
MOBILE
To understand this path, and the component requirements, let’s look at each stage in more detail. STEP 1: MOBILE INVENTORY
The initial step towards full, comprehensive mobile device management is to develop a baseline inventory for all devices – phone and tablets, running Android, iOS or Windows. This inventory process is the essential building block for everything that typically follows. Typically, all mobile devices of interest are sent a special text message which facilitates the deployment of a special piece of software known as a “client” that sits on the device. This client develops an inventory of both
the hardware characteristics of the device as well as the apps installed. This can be seen depicted in the figure below. As users add apps and update existing ones, this information is automatically fed back to the mobile inventory so company management has a current and accurate view of each mobile device.
The Snow SAM platform, with its native support for all types of mobile devices running the most popular operating systems, allows an organization both to quickly gain visibility of the phone and tablets in use and also bring these into a single consolidated view of all IT assets including laptops and desktops, servers and virtual devices.
STEP 2: MOBILE SOFTWARE LICENSE MANAGEMENT
Once the mobile inventory has been completed, a typical next step would be to begin integrating software license management capabilities into the picture. Mobile devices are associated with people and have software applications deployed on them. Software licenses are often associated with a particular application and these devices and their software entitlements are managed for efficiency and compliance.
As an example, an Office 365 user would generally be entitled to access Microsoft’s office applications on their PC, a number of mobile device and on the cloud under one single user license. Advanced Software Asset Management solutions like Snow License Manager can be used to develop these interconnections and ensure both compliance and cost optimization.
Indirect access (also known as indirect usage) is a challenge that can only grow as organizations become increasingly reliant on mobile devices accessing back-end systems. Staff accessing customer, manufacturing, supply-chain, logistics or finance data supplied by SAP and other datacenter software vendors need to be monitored, managed and ultimately paid-for.
As end-users within a company shift their access patterns to data and applications to their mobile devices, software vendors will shift their licensing and audit focus to assure they are capturing their share of licensing spend.
STEP 3: MOBILE DEVICE MANAGEMENT
Once the inventory and license optimization challenges have been addressed, organizations can then consider full enterprise device management as a way to complete the circle in terms of managing the full lifecycle of mobile devices.
The need for mobile device management is strong not only because of the access that these devices have to sensitive information but because of user attitudes to them and the data and apps they hold. Although an increasing number of devices are issued by the organization to employees for work purposes, there is still a strong sense among most users that a mobile is a personal device and thus is often used for personal purposes.
The Snow research referred to earlier in this document found that most people with mobile devices use them for work purposes for between one and two hours per day. Potentially, private use (social media, streaming music, surfing the internet) can far outweigh the business use.
With mobile device management, the platform can be used to help manage many of the actual capabilities
and uses of the device remotely. For example, if a user forgets a password, the device can have a password reset done remotely. Another example might be a situation where a user loses their mobile device. A remote “wipe” of the phone can be carried out through the enterprise mobility solution so that no company data is exposed. Some of the core features of mobile device management include:
• Security management • Data protection
• Integration with Service Desk Support • Software distribution and synchronization • Device provisioning
• Software and hardware inventory management.
The enterprise IT environment continues to grow in complexity with each cycle of innovation. Little of the legacy is wound down, so the task at hand becomes greater in scope and thus more challenging.
The mobile device is the latest development in connectivity that must be properly managed by the organization. Bringing together the licensing of the PC, the company datacenter, the cloud and
SaaS-based applications along with the mobility side of the spectrum makes it easier to understand and manage this complexity.
When all this captured and connected information can be synchronized with the Service Desk, IT support can resolve problems and issues faster, reducing down-time and costs.
BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER – THE DESKTOP, DATACENTER, CLOUD, SERVICE DESK AND MOBILITY
CONCLUSION
Software Asset Management works best by identifying key priorities and breaking down a long-term plan to a series of milestones or accomplishments. Incremental success and feedback can be had, and corrections can be made with minimal loss of time and resources. The same holds true for managing mobile devices. The journey to full mobile device management is best started with a basic baseline inventory of devices and users. At the same time, the inventory baseline can include software applications that are deployed on each device. This effort, while seemingly modest, can produce rapid success on the path to greater goals. From there, analyzing the licensing and compliance becomes the focus to assure the true-up vulnerability is managed and mitigated.
As end-users shift their application usage and data access patterns and data access patterns to mobile
devices, software vendors will begin shifting the focus of their billing and compliance audits in this direction. Those enterprises ahead of the curve will be best suited to handle those audits.
Once mobile license compliance is under control, being able to fully manage the device - from automated software management through to the entire wiping of a lost mobile device done with the click of a button - will layer into the repertoire of capabilities.
Ultimately, it all begins by understanding what mobile devices are connected and under the control of your company.
Talk to an Enterprise Mobility expert to learn about incentives for deploying mobile inventory.
ABOUT SNOW SOFTWARE
Snow’s Mission is to stop organizations paying too high a price for the software they consume.
To bring transparency and fairness to the licensing of software across the network, Snow provides on-premise and cloud-based Software Asset Management (SAM) solutions that safeguard the US $320 billion spent each year on enterprise software: ensuring organizations realize the full benefit of optimized licensing.
Snow is the largest dedicated developer of SAM solutions, headquartered in Sweden with more than 380 staff across 16 regional locations, three development centers and local support teams in seven territories.
Copyright ©2015 Snow Software AB, All Rights Reserved.
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