Bring Your Own Device - Nothing New But Greater Challenges

For the last year or so the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) buzz word has been scaring IT & security managers around the globe. The idea behind it is simple . As tablets & laptop computer have become ubiquitous appliances in the house then why not bring them in to the workplace. Users are already familiar with the hardware, OS & applications & the IT department budget can economize on hardware & potentially support. Of work, the counter argument & what is getting IT & Security departments concerned is the introduction of additional risk to the enterprise surroundings. There is a very actual danger of insecure applications/configurations, virus's all posing a risk to the otherwise "secure" enterprise network & for an IT support managers point of view how can they possibly be expected to troubleshoot an enterprise application that is not working when there is no baseline build or hardware level.




The BYOD is actually nothing new, ever since the rise in personal and home computing people have always desired to bring their own "better", newer and more powerful devices in to the office. The paradox was drawn between IT and the finish user. Why ought to I use and elderly tool in the office when I can work more effectively on my shiny new laptop computer? There is of work no way that know-how departments can keep with the pace of change in both program and hardware without an boundless budget so a balance was drawn. This balance was as a rule drawn in favor of corporate standards, security and cost of possession. Of work there's exceptions. Every company has them. The ever powerful executive or the technologists working on future strategy for whom an exception is granted.

Some companies have successfully implemented a BYOD policyowner. Notable massive companies such as Cisco have taken the approach of allowing BYOD but support is provided on a best efforts basis through internal casual user groups and Wiki's. Other companies take the approach that you can select whatever tool you need but the more it deviates away from the standard procured hardware then your cost middle will pay a premium each month.

The difference now is that consumer hardware and network connectivity have become ubiquitous and with it the finish users are now far more tech savvy than ever before. The one time earlier line between consumer and enterprise know-how has vanished.

Your typical home user has their WiFi router at home that they plugged in themselves and are happy connecting their laptop computer, iPhone, iPad and lots of other devices to the net. They keep in contact with relatives and friends by instant chat, video chat and social media networks. Consumers are not using these devices in the house, equipped with 3G and WiFi these applications and hardware are being used on the move. With the power provided by the current generation and rings and tablets it is no wonder that they have become an everyday part of people's lives and no surprise why they are insisting on using them in the workplace.


Even if a company has a nice policyowner on the use of personal devices in the workplace there's the gigantic challenges of enforcing it - what is to cease someone plugging their own Wi-Fi router in to the network? Less than 1% of companies have implemented 802.1x or other methods of port security and how lots of companies actively scan for rogue finish points? Or what is to cease someone using public Wi-Fi or 3g to work on documents on their laptop computer and emailing them to their work account? Let's hope the laptop computer now with sensitive corporate information on it does not get lost!

Indeed it is impossible to ban these devices from the office. Some huge investment banks have tried to ban cell rings from trading floors others have implemented policy's to prevent USB clever drives being used some have taken the approach of allowing sure applications to be installed to permit e-mail for example on the personal devices. The remaining companies have either said no altogether or provided corporate equivalent devices.

For the finish user, know-how is a tool. Like any tool they need to make use of the that gets the job completed as quickly and effectively as feasible. IT departments ought to be embracing this, training where necessary and understanding that there is a huge cross over in know-how capabilities.

Who desires to carryover a BlackBerry for e-mail, a laptop computer for corporate access, a clever phone for personal calls as well as a tablet for personal e-mail?

 approach in achieving a balance and redrawing the line between personal and corporate is to reset the baseline. Permit users to make use of their own tablets and clever rings but set the parameters for use. For example, why not permit corporate VPN connectivity from your iPad to RDP to your office desktop, why not permit and encrypted e-mail client to be installed on the iPhone? Allowing this, might come with the tradeoff that if your tool is lost or stolen the IT department is at liberty to remotely wipe your tool.

This leaves the challenge of supporting the corporate applications on the device; this ought to be a very little subset of productivity applications that are best delivered as native apps and importantly ought to work by both VPN and not VPN connections. The application set might be very little, for secure e-mail using Nice keeps corporate and personal e-mail separate and encrypted. Using VCEverywhere for video conferencing provides connectivity to your existing video conference surroundings but with the added advantage of support being taken care of by a third party. This is important to make sure that the IT Support department does not suffer determinately.

Video Conferencing on personal devices has seen & continues to see a huge amount of growth. with electronic mail there's distinctions between what is suitable to corporate use versus personal use. Whilst Skype & Facetime make great consumer orientated applications they offer no interoperability with the corporate world, nor do they meet the feature set or security requirements of an enterprise. Using the VCEverywhere application on tablets, smartphones & laptops makes sense. This corporate solution is obtainable as a free download, meets the interoperability requirements to work with any room based video conference solution, meets IT security requirements, works either by the public network or VPN & most importantly comes with 24x7 support.

Adapted from : Mark Stainton-James