The fundamental premise of cloud computing -- ubiquitous access to the Internet -- creates a key challenge in today’s mobile environments. Not because the Internet isn’t readily available – but because most organizations rely on mobile workers to manage their own connectivity.
End-user-driven connectivity in a cloud infrastructure can often lead to degraded service and minimized benefits when organizations rely on mobile workers to manually establish connectivity. Unbudgeted access costs and security holes only exacerbate the problem when mobile employees make expensive and unsecured connectivity choices from the field. As 70% of the North American workforce is now mobile, cloud-based environments require a transparent mobile policy management strategy. More corporate data now resides on mobile devices and is distributed on off-site servers; protecting that data is becoming a mission-critical priority. Visibility and control of the myriad ways end-users access and leverage a cloud computing environment are crucial to ensuring a successful mobile investment. Security- and cost-conscious organizations are focusing on three critical mobility factors as they evaluate and deploy cloud computing:
End-User Reliance and Connectivity: Delivering the greatest degree of flexibility to the mobile workforce depends on providing easy access to cloud-based data and applications from anywhere at any time. Today, users travel between various locations during the course of a workday – switching between a multitude of public, private, wired and wireless networks in order to gain access to corporate applications. This user-driven process requires mobile workers to manually select and connect to the best available network in a given location. The result of leaving the connectivity process to end-users creates confusion around what network to select, what policies to apply and “how to” questions that often result in support calls to IT. While end-users are trying to figure out how to get connected or gain support from their IT helpdesk, they are losing productivity.
Access Costs: Today’s mobile workers are accessing cloud-based data and applications through various technologies like Wi-Fi and 3G either while on the road or working from remote locations such as a hotel or a home office. Unless this connectivity is carefully monitored and controlled, the cost of connecting your mobile workers to your cloud-based environment has the potential to significantly offset the efficiencies you expect to gain from the cloud computing environment. In many cases these costs are unnecessary – such as paying for LAN or Wi-Fi fees when a mobile worker is in an area covered by his paid 3G subscription, using 3G when roaming internationally or using 3G when a free or low-cost Wi-Fi or LAN option is available.
Access Security: Despite many organizations having invested in a portfolio of end-point security solutions and corporate VPNs, data compromise is still a risk because of a variety of threats that stem from network bridging, visits to malicious Web sites, download of malicious software, and use of open and unencrypted networks. These threats persist despite existing security solutions when the process of connecting to wired and wireless networks is a manual, user-driven process.
The Silver Lining: Mobile Policy Management
Mobile Policy Management (MPM) addresses the critical mobility factors of cost control, security and end-user connectivity for cloud-based organizations. For example, Trellia’s Mobile Policy Management platform empowers the enterprise to see how users are connecting and to control access with “zero-click” end-user connectivity through automation and centralized enforcement of mobile access and related policies. This maximizes the overall return on investment of cloud-based initiatives through reduced costs and improved security.
Mobile Policy Management empowers the organization to:
Automate Best Network Selection and Mobile Policy Application: Mobile Policy Management enables IT to pre-define network prioritization policies and assign specific mobile policies to a given network for cloud and non-cloud data and application access. An MPM platform maximizes mobile workforce productivity by automating network selection and mobile access policies. MPM enables IT to pre-define network selection rules and assign mobile policies to each type of network. As mobile workers roam between various locations, a MPM solution automatically selects the best available network as defined by IT, connects the user and applies the relevant mobile policies. The result is a seamless experience that makes remote access and connectivity transparent to end-users, saving them valuable time when accessing cloud and non-cloud data and applications.
Reduce End-User Support Costs of Workforce Mobility: Recent reports estimate that mobile workers will make an average of one call to IT support per user per month, and that the average support incident costs anywhere from $125 to $250. Of the support calls made to IT by mobile workers, most organizations estimate that 50 to 80% are related to connectivity or remote access. As a result, the average cost per user per month for connectivity related to end-user support is about $130. By automating the mobile connectivity process for end-users, thereby eliminating end-user errors, a Mobile Policy Management platform empowers organizations to reduce overall support costs.
Cost Optimize Mobile Data Usage: Mobile Policy Management helps reduce the cost of mobile data usage by cost-optimizing network selection. From an enterprise standpoint, leaving network selection up to the end-user can drive data costs far over budget and create significant cost liabilities. For example, a mobile worker with an unlimited 3G subscription should avoid connecting to, paying for and expensing hotel Wi-Fi when in an area covered by a 3G local provider. On the other hand, the same user should be paying for Wi-Fi when travelling internationally, in order to avoid much larger 3G international roaming fees. The ease of access to removable 3G data cards and the advent of smartphones as tethered 3G devices have introduced a new set of cost concerns as mobile workers are left to purchase and expense 3G subscriptions at their discretion. A MPM platform avoids unbudgeted data costs by enabling IT to define and enforce a network white list, preventing users from adding unsanctioned laptop communications options to their mobile PCs.
Eliminate Common Data-Security Threats: Many data- security threats associated with mobility arise from rogue access points or networks that are in place to lure mobile workers onto them in order for hackers to gain access to corporate data. Common examples include public Wi-Fi access points in airports labeled “free Wi-Fi” or rogue Wi-Fi placed in proximity to corporate offices. These threats persist despite existing security solutions. When connecting to wired and wireless networks is a manual, user-driven process, an MPM platform enables IT to dynamically automate and enforce network-specific security policies as mobile workers roam between various networks. Host-checking, security threshold management, anti-bridging, and other technologies reduce security and compliance issues.
Best-in-class organizations deploying cloud computing are leveraging Mobile Policy Management to gain organization-wide visibility into and control over their mobile workforce. Through a centralized portal, powerful analytics aggregate mobile usage patterns across networks and devices. These analytics expose the breadth of the organization’s mobile behavior. They reveal opportunities for immediate cost savings and remediation of non-compliant activities and security risks, as well as long-term optimization of an organization’s mobile policies and investments, thus maximizing mobile computing in a cloud-based environment.
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