If you’ve made the decision to implement an Mobile Device Management (MDM) solution, you will no doubt be overloaded with the amount of options that are currently out there on the market. While many features will vary, there are certain criteria that are essential in your selection process
- Cloud-based, so updates are automatic and painless
- Fully Managed with 24/7 monitoring
- Remote configuration and monitoring
- Policy enforcement such as passwords and blacklists
- Passcode enforcement/remote data wiping, to prevent unauthorised access to the phone
- Geofencing to restrict access to specific data and applications based on location
- Backup and restore functionality of corporate data
- Logging and reporting for compliance purposes
- Jailbreaking and rooting alerts for users attempting to bypass restrictions
- Remote disconnection or disabling devices and applications
- Scalable, so new users and increasingly sophisticated devices can be accommodated easily
MDM Solution, however are only as useful as their implementation (i.e. they will only succeed if they are executed properly). Care and due diligence must be taken to evaluate the MDM platform to understand if its meets the company’s required policies.
For example:
What happens when an employee leaves? What happens with their device under the BYOD policy? Is access simply cut off to the corporate systems? What happens to saved or cached data on their device?Is it ignored, or is business data wiped? How is the business data separated from a user’s personal data?
Before choosing any MDM solution, these policies need to be specified and in place and continuously reviewed to ensure best practices are maintained.
Other factors to also consider:
Architecture: Cloud services may be rising in popularity, but many businesses are still running systems on premise or in their own data centres. Due to this, MDM solutions come in a mix of options from onsite, cloud and hybrid. Before any business makes a decision on an MDM solution, they must first consider with option is right for your environment
Direction: With the ever changing landscape in the industry, MDM solutions are constantly being updated, revised and enhanced. It is important for businesses to consider where their MDM provider is headed strategically so the product is not only meeting their requirements today, but the future development of the product is likely to continue being a fit for future needs.
Integration: We all know that the more we can get products to integrate, the easier it is to monitor and maintain the system, and reduces the likelihood of missing something. The right MDM solution will enhance both your security and efficiency, by allowing you administrative control and systems monitoring from a single point of access.
