BYOD could evolve into bring your own everything

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Bring your own device has certainly had its fans in recent years, with a growing number of organizations drawn to the collaborative and productive capabilities of smartphones and tablets. Gartner has estimated that by 2017 half of firms will not only allow but encourage employees to take advantage of company BYOD policies.

BYOD and the path toward bringing in anything and everything
Although BYOD is commonly associated with someone simply bringing in a personal device and connecting it to various company applications (as well as attendant security mechanisms), it has the potential to become, or at least influence, something much bigger. Some firms believe that the same ethos behind BYOD could lead to employee-supplied software, storage and services – basically a bring your own anything/everything state of affairs.

According to the Australian government document "Victorian Government ICT Strategy 2014 to 2015," chronicled the shift to BYOD by public sector agencies, citing core benefits such as:

  • Efficient working arrangements: Employees can work from anywhere, potentially driving down organizational costs for office space and power
  • Higher productivity: Workers may feel more comfortable operating out of their homes and using their own devices
  • Easier hardware management: Organizations don't have to buy new endpoints as often, if at all.

The implications of BYOD adoption are wide-reaching. With enterprises becoming increasingly less reliant on hardware, software and even facilities that they have paid for upfront, there's the allure of supporting more operations through cloud computing services that can be delivered to any device, anywhere. It's possible that workers could supplement their personal smartphones and tablets with productivity tools and online storage of their choosing.

"Underpinning BYOD, a range of policies and standards are required to ensure that security, interoperability and performance are not compromised. BYOD is a first step in a broader approach to employee [information and communications technology] productivity, leading to bringing your own productivity software and some storage – i.e. BYOE ('bring your own everything')," wrote the report authors.

The range of use cases for BYOD is certainly impressive. Eight years ago, Seton Academy in South Holland, Indiana introduced student laptops, containing 70 percent of the required textbooks, and now it is transitioning to BYOD. More specifically, its educators plan to use cutting-edge hardware to support school-wide initiatives such as delivering books through the cloud and moving to electronic-only submission of papers.

Unified communications brings real benefits to education

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As its name suggests, a unified communications suite gives the user a variety of business services, from instant messaging and email to voice calling and video conferencing, in a single convenient platform. On top of that, UC can serve as a natural path into cloud computing. Many of its key functionalities do not even require on-premises physical equipment since they can be run from remotely hosted servers.

UC solutions are ideal for organizations looking to consolidate their communications processes and save money while doing so. Let's look at some of the general benefits of UC, as well as how it has worked in practice for institutions in higher education.

Why organizations should consider replacing legacy systems with UC
The well known limitations of legacy hardware and software – inflexibility, difficult maintenance and total cost – can hold back businesses that are in the midst of rapid growth. Rather than deal with arduous upgrades of traditional phone systems, for instance, companies can adopt a UC platform that provides a broader set of communications services with a lower price tag.

Some of the most notable perks of UC include:

  • Better overall user experience: Thanks to the rise of mobile computing, individuals now expect immersive, intuitive interactions with all devices and applications. UC offerings may feature rich interfaces, plus they're usually compatible with smartphones and tablets, making it possible to work from anywhere.
  • Reduced equipment- and support-related costs: Investing in a UC system may not even require purchasing new hardware upfront. Services are delivered through an IP network, an appealing arrangement for cost-conscious small and midsize businesses. The UC provider may also handle support issues, freeing up the IT department to attend to other matters.
  • Flexibility and scalability: Backed by cloud storage services, UC solutions can be easily modified and extended as business requirements evolve and the user base grows.

University puts UC to work in modernizing practices
How does UC look in the real world? EdTech chronicled the Florida State University College of Medicine's adoption of a UC suite that included video conferencing and was supported by server virtualization.

Five years ago, the institution upgraded its network to support the added bandwidth requirements of video conferencing, and more recently it virtualized its servers to save rack space. The result has been a UC video conferencing platform that enables remote work and easy video viewing by students and guests.

"We now have more than 2,000 recordings that take up in excess of 2 terabytes of data," college media specialist Patrick Sparkman told EdTech. "While virtualizing our UC servers was part of the college's effort to modernize its server infrastructure, adding the [storage area network] gave us the storage capabilities we needed. And, through the server virtualization, we now have the redundancy we didn't have when we started."

The college is still moving toward full implementation of UC. Over the next few years, it hopes to continue making use of platforms such as Microsoft Lync and also integrate voicemail with email.

Clear policies and user education enable effective BYOD

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Bring your own device has been all the rage in recent years, ever since iOS and Android smartphones and tablets entered the mainstream. Although modestly powered compared to a modern desktop PC, these devices have many built-in advantages over older hardware, including high-resolution, pixel-dense displays, 3G and 4G LTE cellular connectivity, and excellent portability.

Still, there are some key considerations to make when adopting a BYOD strategy. Are devices properly secured? How much will it take to support each new endpoint? There are plenty of options out there for organizations seeking to make the most of BYOD and overcome common obstacles related to security and cost.

BYOD has solid momentum, raising the stakes for user education and sound implementation
One of the biggest benefits of BYOD is that it potentially frees the organization from having to shoulder the costs of additional hardware upgrades, since each user supplies his or her own device. On top of that, the freedom and flexibility conferred by BYOD can translate into new business opportunities, such as ones for sales teams that need to make presentations or access corporate data while on the road.

“BYOD strategies are the most radical change to the economics and the culture of client computing in business in decades,” stated Gartner analyst David Willis. “The benefits of BYOD include creating new mobile workforce opportunities, increasing employee satisfaction, and reducing or avoiding costs.”

Gartner predicts that by 2017, half of all businesses will require employees to adopt  BYOD, in hopes of achieving these benefits and others. Setting up and enforcing BYOD policies could save companies a lot of money that would have otherwise gone toward building dedicated networks and procuring compatible hardware.

Solutions such as desktop virtualization have come to the fore alongside BYOD, making it increasingly possible to provide a consistent operating system experience to every device within the organization. Vendors such as Samsung have also created device-specific security suites designed to ease BYOD management.

Ensuring security and productivity with a BYOD strategy
It is important to have an actionable plan in place before implementing BYOD. As ZDNet’s Adrian Kingsley-Hughes pointed out, a seat-of-the-pants approach usually does not work since companies can run into trouble trying to ensure that, for instance, assets are not moved from the internal network to public-facing cloud storage services.

Instead, companies have to train employees on using BYOD-enabled hardware responsibly and regularly reinforce guidelines. More specifically, some considerations for a sensible BYOD policy might include:

  • Guidance on how to deal with lost devices
  • What happens if a BYOD user leaves the organization
  • Listing of what company data, if any, is governed by regulations

Ultimately, BYOD is an exciting opportunity for organizations, but one that must be approached with care. Common sense and technical know-how can transform employee devices into valuable company assets.

“We are now entering a period of transformation,” Samsung Telecommunications America vice president David Lowe told FierceMobileIT. “It started out with clients being very reluctant to support mobility in their enterprise, trying to figure a way to keep it out. We are now in the transformation stage where enterprises are finally embracing it. That’s where the real innovation is going to come.”

Developing a strategic view is essential in the cloud storage era

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The business world is moving toward what may soon be an all-cloud computing deployment model, a recent IT World Canada article noted. But as companies are increasingly prompted to shift their resources to colocation hosting and cloud storage solutions, they also must make sure to do so with a strategic vision. Although the cloud can offer valuable solutions to existing problems, IT departments will still want to rely on a range of specific technologies based on application needs.

"[P]ublic procurement processes will almost inevitably lead to more than one type of cloud being used which, for many reasons, is probably preferable but also more complex," IT World Canada contributor Don Sheppard wrote.

Getting into the cloud is often seen as such a key imperative for businesses that there is less consideration about the best way to do so, ITBusinessEdge contributor Arthur Cole explained. A lack of planning can hold back a cloud implementation from offering maximum benefit. In many cases, companies have multiple departments attempting separate moves to the cloud, which can limit the technology's inherent agility and integration benefits.

For some organizations, the public cloud may not be the ideal solution, and a custom virtualization deployment may make more sense, the article noted. To determine the best form of cloud storage for an individual business, it can be advantageous to work with a managed services provider to develop a custom plan. More often than not, a hybrid cloud offering that gives organizations the security and control advantages of on-premises solutions and the scalability and flexibility of the cloud will be the ideal route to take.

Unified communications expands into new deployment models

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It's long been clear that the era of the phone exchange as it's traditionally worked has come to an end, but the era of its initial replacement, the traditional on-premises unified communications, is dissolving as well – not that the market is in decline. Instead, companies are migrating toward hosted unified communications solutions that leverage a diverse cloud environment.

A recent Infonetics Research study found that the market for VoIP services grew 8 percent from 2012 to 2013, and sales of hosted PBX and unified communications systems increased 13 percent. These trends suggest that business VoIP has moved into the mainstream, according to Infonetics principal analyst Diane Myers.

"Hosted unified communications are seeing strong interest up-market as midmarket and larger enterprises evaluate and move more applications to the cloud, and this is positively impacting the market," she said.

Not only are more companies considering hosted UC options, many are embracing the modern reality of UC, which is more fragmented than in the past, a recent No Jitter article reporting from the UC Summit said. While cloud hosting solutions are perfect for some business needs, many companies prefer to keep other tasks on-premises. Given these challenges, businesses can benefit from working with a managed services firm to develop a clear UC strategy that blends internal data center and external cloud resources.

Adopting the right cloud services portfolio

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Attracted by the promise of leaner operations, reduced costs and simplified management, companies are switching from on-premises data centers to colocation providers and cloud storage solutions. As this transition occurs, however, it is important for businesses to ensure they are adopting third-party solutions that actually fit their specific needs and work toward their stated goals of leaner approaches.

In a recent interview with Network World, pharmaceutical IT executive Nathan McBride outlined the ways his company has shifted toward a more efficient IT model by abandoning its own data centers in favor of outsourced solutions. One of the factors he pointed to in the decision-making process for creating a leaner business was diversifying the set of cloud service and managed services vendors his company used.

“[F]rom a cloud vendor approach, we’re constantly looking at the market and saying, ‘Here’s our business need, and who is the best in the industry in this particular niche?'” he told Network World. “Our loyalty only extends to those who innovate the fastest.”

With a managed services model, companies gain the ability to tie their IT to solutions providers who are implementing state-of-the-art technologies rather than waiting for the slow refresh cycles endemic to on-premises deployments. At the same time, a cloud provider can be an inhibitor as well, industry expert Bill Kleyman noted in a recent post for Data Center Knowledge. With pre-packaged solutions, many cloud services vendors simply offer companies standardized products and offer little interest in clients beyond signing them up.

To actually ensure they’re not only taking advantage of the latest technology but also the technology that’s best suited for their specific needs, businesses can benefit from adopting a cloud services portfolio that includes smaller vendors dedicated to deploying custom solutions. Moving away from the on-premises data center carries many advantages, but businesses should be thoughtful about doing it in the right way with managed solutions. In particular, choosing a managed solutions provider that is technology agnostic is key, as this breadth of support can help organizations more seamlessly transition to the cloud at their own pace and address unique business challenges.

Overcoming common obstacles to VDI implementation

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Implementing virtual desktop infrastructure is a big change for any organization. It almost always leads to significant shifts in how the network is used, plus VDI can really strain the storage and bandwidth resources in company data centers. If an enterprise is unprepared, its VDI efforts could get of to a rocky start.

The VDI 'boot storm' and others issues to keep in mind
Last year, ZDNet's Steven Vaughan-Nichols examined some of the common obstacles to successfully setting up VDI. These include:

  • Insufficient bandwidth: The key advantage of VDI is that it enables everyone to work more easily from anywhere, through the delivery of a consistent desktop. But once employees are working outside the office, there's no guarantee that they'll have Internet connection speeds that are suitable for an optimal VDI experience.
  • Bring-your-own-device security: In many scenarios, it makes sense for VDI users to use a virtual private network, which is not always easily accomplished if they're connecting from, say, a public Wi-Fi hotspot.
  • License and storage management: VDI licensing can become really complex on Microsoft Windows. On top of that, accommodating user habits can require large amounts of storage, while "boot storms" (everyone connecting to VDI within a short timeframe) push servers to capacity.

The latter phenomenon is particularly noteworthy, since it not only compromises the end user's ability to be productive through VDI, but also reveals which parts of the IT infrastructure are insufficient or at least unsuited to VDI. With VDI now a popular method for facilitating corporate mobile device usage, the boot storm can make it seem really out of place alongside native mobile applications.

"The issue with virtual desktops is the so-called 'boot storm" when everyone fires up their computers at 8 AM. As any PC user knows, a hard drive running flat out at 150 IOPS takes a couple of minutes to complete boot," wrote Jim O'Reilly for Network Computing. "A quicker boot time will be important for VDI, especially with most users having instant-on experience with tablets and mobile phones. These are becoming the endpoint for the virtual desktops to be displayed, and a long period to boot up every time the desktop is accessed isn't going to fly."

These problems are not intractable, though. Managed services providers can assist with desktop virtualization and ensure that organizations get the levels of storage, licensing and bandwidth that they need to make VDI work for them.

Data storage and VDI
O'Reilly also looked at some data storage considerations to make when considering VDI. For example, replacing some or all traditional hard disk drives with solid-state drives can provide the performance boost required for first-rate VDI. While SSDs are more expensive than HDDs on a per-GB basis, they can support many more VDI instances.

Organizations such as the Bank of Stockton in California have shifted their storage strategies to respond to surging VDI traffic. The bank used a combination of DRAM, SSDs and flash memory, as well as virtualization and decompression, to ensure that its appliances could keep pace with VDI usage. Implementing VDI requires new approaches to hardware, security and device management, but it is possible to get it right with help from vendors and IT services providers.

Government agencies show power, potential of VDI

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Why use virtual desktop infrastructure? Many government agencies have found plenty of reasons to do so, including supporting their increasingly diverse device fleets and reducing overall power consumption.

What are the main benefits of VDI?
With VDI, the computing power needed to deliver a desktop environment moves from on-site PCs to servers housed in a data center. For public and private sector organizations alike, there are several key benefits to this arrangement, including:

  • Heightened device and data security – hardware running virtual desktops via VDI is connected to servers through an encrypted channel. That means it is safe to grant these devices access to core applications, such as enterprise resource planning and client relationship management.
  • Streamlined system administration – IT personnel can worry less about having to implement complex mobile device management for smartphones and tablets
  • Lower costs – VDI can be a viable alternative to building entirely new applications and services tailored specifically for mobile screens. The use of zero/thin clients – minimal hardware with little to no installed software – also drives down electricity consumption compared to desktop PCs.
  • Support for mobility – teams working off-site can still access important assets by connecting to VDI.

U.S. government sees success with VDI implementations
Implementing virtualization and VDI have already produced real gains for the U.S. Department of Energy, as well as the Defense Intelligence Agency and the Navy. For instance, FCW reported that the DOE conducted a 500-seat VDI pilot program that exhibited an excellent level of user experience and proved that VDI could also help trim expenses.

Going forward, VDI may evolve, moving off-premises and into cloud computing environments. More specifically, desktop-as-a-service may provide similar amenities to VDI, with the exception that infrastructure is managed by a cloud services provider rather than the organization itself.

Freeing IT of this responsibility could potentially streamline costs even further. However, there are still the core issues of ensuring that data is kept safe in the cloud and that organization’s particular needs, especially for bandwidth, are being met.

VDI and bandwidth requirements
For organizations that adopt VDI, it’s critical to figure out right away what is expected from the VDI implementation. That way, they reduce the risk of setting up something that doesn’t align with their goals and ends up running over budget. In many cases, these issues manifest themselves as poor end-user experiences or insufficient bandwidth as a result of “boot storms” (many users connecting to VDI simultaneously).

“You also need to bear in mind that VDI almost always results in a change in usage patterns,” explained The Register’s Trevor Pott. “Whatever your usage patterns are today, expect that VDI deployments will ultimately see more people working remotely, be that telecommuting from home or pulling down their desktop at a hotel or business meeting. You need enough [wide area network] bandwidth to meet not just today’s needs, but tomorrow’s.”

Handling changes in bandwidth usage requires careful consideration of VDI storage and networking equipment such as switches and ports. Managers also have to learn more about what types of applications teams will be using via VDI. While word processors won’t really push server CPUs to their limits, any software that works with graphics and/or video will significantly alter calculations of what kinds of resources will be required to ensure optimal VDI experience.

With the help of a managed services provider, companies can set up VDI that works for them. When VDI first became a hot topic several years ago, organizations were eager to use it as a catch-all solution, which led to many underperforming implementations. If aligned to specific goals, though, VDI is an effective, economical way to use the same applications anywhere.

How desktop virtualization enables better BYOD management

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Virtual desktop infrastructure gained traction recently as more organizations adopt and support mobility initiatives. Employees, empowered by bring-your-own-device policies, are increasingly capable of working from anywhere. Companies that are phasing out Windows XP PCs may even choose to replace these aging machines with mobile devices that provide more streamlined user experiences and offer a slew of modern applications.

VDI’s role in enabling mobility
Where does VDI fit into this picture? With device fleets becoming more fragmented, VDI can be a cost-effective means of providing critical access to core company assets such as enterprise resource planning, client relationship management and line-of-business applications. It’s economical because it requires less investment, both in time and money, than crafting mobile experiences from scratch.

“Applications can also be enhanced for mobile access on the server end, without building a mobile development capability within your organization or hiring expensive outside help,” explained TechRepublic contributor Patrick Gray. “You could use your existing ERP developers to create a dozen screens and reports that have a limited number of fields, and space them more appropriately for mobile use, without writing a single line of mobile code.”

In practical terms, VDI can give sales teams access to full desktops so that they can make use of important tools such as CRM and PowerPoint while on the road. Even if the organization has a BYOD initiative in place, VDI simplifies common BYOD issues such as hardware management and security enforcement – each device communicates securely with the VDI servers via an encrypted session.

VDI and the growing uses of desktop virtualization
Moreover, VDI fits into many organizations’ growing interest in virtualization. Forrester Research’s David Johnson told InfoWorld that more than half of IT decision-makers cite desktop virtualization as a top priority for 2014. Although the market for PCs may be stagnant right now, there is still enough demand for virtual desktops that many companies have turned to VDI to deliver secure computing environments and access to applications on any device.

Certainly, there can be technical and financial challenges in implementing effective VDI, but these obstacles can be overcome with the expertise of an IT solutions and managed services provider. Organizations can also optimize VDI through the use of thin-client software to connect to VDI systems. Eventually, VDI implementations can pay for themselves by making workers more capable, regardless of where they are, while also streamlining mobile device management.

Cybersecurity shifts to managed network security

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Traditional approaches to cybersecurity such as simply installing antivirus software are losing their edge, according to many in the industry. As a result, companies are increasingly looking to more comprehensive solutions, including additional security training, advanced malware detection, vulnerability scanning services and managed network security services.

The shift away from basic antivirus tools has been occurring for several years now, a recent Wall Street Journal article noted. One executive for one popular antivirus software told the publication that antivirus "is dead." Instead, companies are increasingly shifting their attention from keeping threats out to detecting intrusions more effectively and minimizing the impact.

Reflecting this trend, recent years have seen rapid growth in investment in services such as advanced malware detection and managed network security, a recent ESG research study found. Six in 10 enterprises working with managed services providers in these areas have increased their use of the services somewhat or substantially in the last two years. In particular, 41 percent are investing in managed network security services, 39 percent are investing in risk assessment services and 39 percent are investing in vulnerability scanning services as well. Around 23 percent of organizations have completely outsourced incident detection and security response or are using a provider for staff augmentation.

"[M]any firms realize that chasing anomalous behavior and malcode demands time, resources, and the right technologies," Network World contributor Jon Oltsik wrote. "Given this, an average regional bank, process manufacturing company, or teaching hospital may not want to play cyber cops and robbers anymore."

By outsourcing security tasks and relying on a third-party vendor for services such as managed network security, companies can free up resources to focus on their core competencies, while at the same time improving their effectiveness in fighting today's advanced security threats.