Security is one of the biggest concerns IT administration faces when it comes to mobility. Maintaining adequate levels of security when devices are no longer operating within a controlled environment poses some unique challenges. Once BYOD is added into the mix, user privacy concerns further complicate the picture. Simply concentrating on data flow and app control is no longer sufficient.
Enterprise Mobility Management (EMM) is a collection of management approaches that can actually increase user privacy while enhancing, rather than compromising, enterprise security.
EMM allows IT administrators to manage user identities and provides for more robust handling of group and role related policies, but it isn’t always so simple to choose exactly the right EMM tool. In order to simplify the selection process, here is an overview of some of the core aspects of most EMM strategies.
Mobile Device Management (MDM)
In any system that incorporates mobility functionality, MDM ensures that device configurations are in line with company policies and provides some at-a-distance capabilities such as tracking, locking, wiping, and restoring devices.
Mobile Application Management (MAM)
A modern mobile device is really nothing more than a delivery vehicle for the apps people use to do their work. EMM allows for installing, uninstalling, and updating both business and personal apps over the air. MAM provides further functionality in the form of white- and blacklisting of applications as well as application license management.
Mobile Content Management (MCM)
Users make use of apps to create content. That content needs to be managed, and access to it controlled, if security is to be maintained in a mobility based environment. MCM is most often implemented as a device-resident container. Sensitive business data and content resides in the container, which allows IT administrators to effectively manage business related information without requiring access to the user’s personal data.
Managing Identities
Identity management is a newer authentication methodology that has very quickly seen widespread adoption. One of the main draws of this methodology is that it isn’t limited to a mobile framework and can therefore be implemented systemwide, even for desk workers who don’t need to be mobile.
It can be great to have options, but in a market such as the one for EMM products, the number of choices can quickly become a case of too much of a good thing. Understanding the main components of an EMM system can help focus the decision making process, and realistically identifying the business’s mobility needs invariably makes selecting the right option that much easier.