Ensure Optimal Infrastructure Support
for Mobility
The technology industry has
reached a watershed moment.
Today, the enterprise is on the
move as employee adoption of
mobile devices, like smartphones
and tablets, is surging. An
increasing percentage of the
workforce is using a personal
device to stay connected and
be productive in performing
business functions. In the past,
many organisations didn’t allow
employees to use their personal
devices to access corporate
resources and/or data. But as
devices become more manageable
and internal IT budgets suffer
in today’s uncertain economic
climate, organisations are
increasingly allowing employees to
use their personal mobile devices
for work purposes.
If business functions are to be
performed on personal devices, the
IT department’s ability to manage the
operations of these devices and their
underlying infrastructure must be at
an optimal level.
Is your organisation prepared? You
need to ask yourself if you have
defined service level agreements
(SLAs) for your wireless network
infrastructure, and if they’ve been
agreed upon with your business
stakeholders. You should also
determine whether you have
scheduled reporting of availability,
performance, compliance, security
and inventory guides on IT operations
activities. Beyond operations
management of the infrastructure,
are mobile device management
systems in place to provision, manage
and support devices and the diversity
of these devices?
In this report, we’ll examine the
area of IT services operations with a
related discussion on mobile device
management. IT services operations
refer to the day-to-day management
of the operations of any wired and
wireless network component within
the infrastructure. We will review the
levels of capability in this discipline
and discuss in more depth what
elements, at each level, you should
be investigating from a business,
technology and policy standpoint.
We’ll also explore basic reactive
strategies to optimised proactive
mechanisms and those in between.
Contents
Operational excellence 01
IT Services operations 01
Mobile device management 03
Operational excellence
In the first report of this series, Ensuring Mobility Translates to Agility, we discussed using an enterprise mobility framework as a guide when devising your enterprise mobility strategy.
Operational excellence is a key element of this framework. It addresses how you manage the environment from a strategic, governance, and day-to-day operational level.
Strategic level concerns revolve around the selection of which applications to support and carriers to use. Governance concerns the management of multiple supplier contracts, ensures policies are in place and enforced, and that risks are identified and mitigated in the shortest possible time. Operational level elements encompass ITIL alignment in the provision of support and managed services, which may include matters such as a service catalogue and support help desk function.
Expense management is also a consistent component of operational excellence.
It is this operational point of view that we’ll explore further. We recommend a self- assessment of IT services operations as it is a critical reflection point of enterprise mobility.
IT services operations
This discipline relates to the day-to-day management of the operations of any wired and wireless network component within the corporate infrastructure.
Proactive monitoring of the mobility- enabled infrastructure in order to prevent any downtime, and being able to troubleshoot any issues as quickly as possible are important capabilities of this competency. Ensuring infrastructure elements are up and running to provide connectivity for users is a critical aspect of IT services operations.
This competency also includes the management of client devices connecting to the network. This is commonly referred to as mobile device management or an IT department’s ability to support various mobile devices on the network. Inventory and asset management are only the first steps of this capability. Many organisations tend to need more advanced device management that allows for deeper integration into their connected enterprise in order to deploy applications and/or allow policy-based access to back-end systems.
Proper back-up of the data on mobile devices must also be considered, as well as the process by which to ensure that the operating systems on the devices are appropriately updated.
01
Levels of capability
How do you work out the levels of your IT services operations capability? There are three possible levels: basic, integrated, and optimised. With each level of maturity, you can replace reactive mechanisms with more proactive approaches towards meeting an optimised IT services operations competency.
A simple description for a basic level of capability is a network device level maintenance for the wireless infrastructure.
To fall in this category, you would, at a minimum, be able to maintain devices.
For example, if a wireless access point goes down, a user will call saying that they cannot connect, and a reactive action would be taken in order to fix the connectivity problem.
In addition, for the client device side, you would have basic inventory and asset management of the mobile devices interacting with your corporate network.
This includes initial provisioning of a device where your organisation will want to ensure that basic certificates, policies and device settings have been established to ensure proper initial device enrollment.
At an integrated level of capability, you would have visibility within the infrastructure, most likely enabled via a wireless management platform. This is usually a software platform provided by the access point vendor, which would allow you to view alerts and determine which access points within the infrastructure have failed and need attention.
This capability level further extends the use of the wireless management platform to enable monitoring for availability and event management. This level of capability ensures a more proactive approach to IT services operations and meeting SLAs.
While problem management may still be reactive, there will be proactive reporting to the business in place, as well as a service desk to provide level-two support.
The integrated level of capability also ensures the proper backup of the data on mobile devices. Security policies and procedures should be in place for contextual device security, user and device- level blocking via passcodes, the ability to encrypt data on the mobile devices, as well as the ability to remotely wipe and/or lock a device in case it is lost or stolen.
Security policies and procedures should be
in place for contextual device security,
user and device-level blocking via
passcodes, the ability to encrypt data on
the mobile devices, as well as the ability
to remotely wipe and/or lock a device
in case it is lost or stolen.
To achieve an optimised level of capability in this competency, other networks beyond the enterprise wireless network are covered by the support function. Business SLAs are managed across wireless, wired and even mobile networks. While the connectivity delivered over the wireless network is paramount, there is a dependency on related systems and networks that can also impact business SLAs. Wireless doesn’t work in a vacuum, and to be truly optimised it needs to be fully integrated across other parts of the business.
In the early days of wireless networks, they were usually deployed as a completely separate network.
Isolating the network, which had been demanded by business users, from other corporate networks was IT’s way of ensuring security measures or policy enforcement to protect the corporate wired network and its resources from being compromised. Today, wired and wireless access methods might coexist, but they integrate somewhere within the infrastructure. The degree to which the WLAN is integrated into the wired network varies, but the trend is certainly toward complete integration, especially as managing two separate infrastructures can be costly. Figure 1 indicates that a large number of organisations are integrating their wired and wireless networks; wireless access is not isolated in a vacuum anymore and is integrated across the business, as it becomes more mission-critical in enabling mobility.
Beyond the wired network, there should be some alignment of wireless and mobility technology deployment with a greater IT strategy. This may include integration with other components of the enterprise architecture, such as back-end systems, ERP or SAP. It extends to the introduction of new applications and technology architectures into the environment. There would also usually be a proactive effort to address user needs and application introduction to include mobile access requirements to these back- end systems as part of the deployment of these applications. Will the experience and support of a mobile user of these applications be the same as a wired user?
We’re talking about a generally more integrated approach, where wireless, wired and other network technology with common access and applications are closely tied together.
On the client device side, systems need to go beyond simply being aware of and managing devices via basic security mechanisms such as a remote wipe. At this level, you’ll need systems to ensure that you have a means to deploy or grant access to applications and corporate data such that your workforce can do more than just access the corporate e-mail system. This will also be the level at which you consider systems to help manage and control application bandwidth usage and cellular minute usage in terms of telecommunications expense management.
Examples
Below are some examples of IT services operations competency. These are here to help you ascertain where you are in terms of your capability within this competency.
• Wireless management platforms are implemented for basic control of wireless access points and controllers
• Service level agreements for wireless networks are defined and agreed upon with business stakeholders
• Mobile device management for provisioning of security policy and configuration settings
• Maintenance and support agreements are up-to-date and in place for all wireless infrastructure
• Proactive capacity planning and assessment of wireless and mobility infrastructure
• Regularly-scheduled reporting of availability, performance, compliance, security and inventory that will guide IT operations’ activities
• Expense, application, bandwidth and usage management for mobile devices Questions you should ask:
• Do you have SLAs for your wireless network(s) defined and have they been agreed upon with business stakeholders?
This capability would put you at an
‘integrated’ level of maturity.
• Do you have regularly scheduled reporting of availability, performance, compliance, security and inventory to guide your IT operations’ activities? If so, you’re in the upper ‘optimised’ echelons of maturity in this competency.
Some of the examples above can help you determine your desired future state.
It’s best to think of this in terms of achievable business objectives. Operational effectiveness is usually a key business objective as is the IT operations’ ability to meet those objectives and support the business by ensuring the IT infrastructure is not only up and running, but operating as optimally as possible with proactive and frequent reporting and assessment activity. Mobile device management can also facilitate business effectiveness through proper deployment of security and configuration policies.
Figure 1: WLAN Integration with wired infrastructure
How integrated are your wireless networks with your wired infrastructure?
2010 2009
Fully blended: Wireless and wired are fully integrated with no strong segmentation between the two
Don’t know Logical segmentation: Wireless
and wired share the physical infrastructure but are firewalled or strongly segmented from each other (e.g. guest network, credit cardholder data network, etc.) Physical segmentation: Wireless is
a completely separate network
35%
42%
37%
42%
13%
18%
8%
5%
03
When you consider the solutions you would like to implement to move to a higher maturity level in this area, ask yourself:
• Would you like to have maintenance and support agreements up-to-date and in place for all wireless infrastructures?
• Would it be beneficial to have regular capacity planning and assessment of wireless and mobility infrastructure conducted?
• What would regular reporting of availability, performance, compliance and security vulnerabilities mean to my business operations?
• What value would expense
management, as well as application and bandwidth management for mobile devices bring to my organisation?
Mobile device management
In the context of IT services operations, the proliferation of consumer devices in the workplace is changing the ways organisations support mobility solutions.
Employees expect reliable and high- quality access to corporate information and systems using these personal mobile devices.
Mobile device management (MDM) products help enterprises manage what is now a more complex, mobile computing environment within today’s workplace.
They do so by installing software on users’
devices, which provides visibility and control for IT operations. Other features typically include the ability to encrypt data, remotely wipe a lost or stolen device, and perform inventory tracking and software updates across multiple operating system (OS) platforms.
When investigating MDM solutions for your business there are several issues to consider:
• What type of mobile devices and platforms do you need to manage?
You’ll want to ensure the solution can handle the OS platforms your employees are using. Figure 2 below gives you an idea of the platforms in use by today’s business technology professionals.
• Security is always a high priority for IT operations and it’s no different when it comes to the management of disparate mobile devices in employees’ hands.
The issue here is the risk of data loss, particularly if a phone is misplaced or stolen. Additionally, organisations need to control access to corporate resources from mobile devices.
• System management features need to be as extensive as the security features.
This goes beyond simple inventory management and awareness of the newly connected mobile device to deeper integration into your connected enterprise in order to deploy applications and/or allow policy-based access to back-end systems. IT operations need the ability to install, update and even remove applications, not to mention remotely patch operating systems. This extends further to application bandwidth and telecommunications expense management.
• Besides the features MDM solutions provide, consider how they provide security and management attributes.
There are a variety of deployment options for MDM solutions. Today, some vendors offer the choice of either on- premise management platform software or a software-as-a-service version that is hosted off-site at the vendor’s or managed service provider’s location.
It becomes a question of balancing economic flexibility with leaving control in the hands of a third party.
There are a number of research reports and white papers that provide more details around MDM best practices and guides for selecting the best solution. We won’t go into that level of detail here, but in the context of IT services operations and providing support for your mobile workforce there are a few subtle technology implementation considerations to be aware of that many organisations discover when they begin to implement MDM solutions.
IT needs to understand business priorities
This may seem obvious, but delivering secure access via mobile devices while not inhibiting employees’ ability to perform their business functions is sometimes a delicate balance. It is easy for an IT operations-driven initiative to consider more heavily the former and then have to back-pedal to support the latter after a solution has been implemented.
Make sure you understand your employees’
technology needs and preferences. This will help you create and prioritise worker groups (to be managed via the MDM system) based on job function, technology used and work requirements.
Prioritise support for iOS and Android
Employees are unsatisfied with the capabilities of remote infrastructure management and Microsoft OS platforms, and are more likely to have chosen alternative mobile platforms. Figure 2 on page 3 gives us an idea of the prevalent mobile operating systems in use by today’s business technology professionals. iOS and Android are dominating user-preferred platforms. This is an even more difficult proposition because many MDM solutions, while developing rapidly, have limited management capability for these OS platforms.
Make sure you
understand
your employees’
technology needs
and preferences.
This will help you
create and prioritise
worker groups
based on job
function, technology
used and work
requirements.
Embrace application
virtualisation to scale Windows applications to non-Windows devices
Once MDM solutions are implemented, the challenge of OS fragmentation can become a serious issue. Productivity applications and other business-specific applications were originally developed for the Windows operating system, so employees using the Android OS or iOS looking to have the same experience may feel unfulfilled.
This may warrant the implementation of visualisation tools, from vendors like Citrix, to deliver important Windows applications to non-Windows devices. The alternative is to rebuild and deliver applications on the user-preferred OS platform, which may be difficult from a budget and skills perspective.
During your self-assessment, keep these considerations in mind, as well as the levels of capability within IT services operations, and where your organisation is today and where you’d like to be in the near future.
As application developers and device manufacturers win over consumers with their intuitive smartphones, operating systems and mobile applications, the ability for your IT department to manage the operations of not only these devices, but the underlying infrastructure supporting them, must be as optimal as possible.
For more information, visit
www.dimensiondata.com/enterprisemobility Figure 2: Mobile operating systems in use
Which of the following mobile operating systems are you using, have you used or have you evaluated in the last 12 months?
Apple iOS 76%
Android Phone 58%
RIM Blackberry
Phone OS 45%
Android Tablet 27%
Windows Mobile 18%
Windows Phone 7 13%
RIM Blackberry
Tablet OS(QNX) 5%
HP Palm WebOS 3%
Symbian 1%
Other 1%
Note: Three responses allowed
Data: Information Week Analytics Mobile OS Vendor Evaluation Survey of 651 business technology professionals, May 2011
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