Enterasys Debuts BYOD Management System
It seems as though every vendor worth its salt is coming out with technology to harness the bring-your-own-device (BYOD) trend (or headache, for some). The latest: Enterasys, with its Mobile Identity and Access Manager (IAM).
Mobile IAM is an appliance — either physical or virtual — that sits on the network and enables IT administrators and service providers to protect their network investment while allowing myriad mobile devices on their network, said Ram Appalaraju, vice president of Marketing at Enterasys.
“When we set out to develop something for BYOD, we had three objectives: make it pervasive, to work on any device and with any vendor’s technology; make it simple to operate and manage; and make it cost-effective,” he said.
The appliance supports 3,000 devices and costs $23,995 list, making the cost per device managed about $8, Appalaraju said. Plus, the appliances can be stacked to manage up to 100,000 devices.
Mobile IAM offers a number of security features including:
- Auto Discovery: Automatic discovery and provisioning of users, devices and access location.
- Multilevel Device Profiling: Automatically detects device types based on OS and the device type.
- Flexible Onboarding: Supports multivendor networks.
- Context-Based Policy Management: Helps users enforce granular policies to ensure optimal usage of network resources and application capacity while providing end-to-end visibility of employees, guests, devices and location usage.
- Guest Access Management: Provides context-based policy enforcement and end-to-end management, as well as auditing and reporting on guest access.
Along with Mobile AIM, Enterasys is debuting a professional service around Mobile AIM, Enterasys Mobile IAM Professional Services, under which Enterasys will provision and deploy customized BYOD solutions for Apple iOS, Google Android, RIM Blackberry and other devices. Services include policy-based routing for all edge devices, customized identity and access management implementation, and setup for custom user and device policies, including guest access.
Enterasys guarantees a typical 3,000-device deployment in a 10-day time frame, which Appalaraju said is three times faster than other service providers’ deployments.
VARs can utilize Mobile IAM Professional Services in their customer deals, and Enterasys also plans to roll out a training and certification program for its channel partners who want to become proficient in Mobile AIM technology, he noted.
“This is technology that is becoming more and more pervasive,” Appalaraju said. “It’s not just enterprises who are in need of a solution such as this — [verticals such as] libraries and churches are also looking for BYOD solutions.”
Mobile AIM is slated to be available in June 2012. The Mobile IAM Professional Services is priced at $22,000 for 3,000 devices.
This is Enterasys’ latest move to flatten the network and make it easier for IT. In October 2011 the company launched its OneFabric architecture and accompanying partner program, and in January 2012 pushed the architecture to the network edge to make it easier to manage wired and wireless devices outside the data center.
And as Enterays readies for its Super Drive 2012: Enterasys Networks Americas Sales & Partner Conference May 14-16 in Las Vegas, no doubt the company will be pushing its OneFabric architecture and other next-generation network offerings to its partner base. We’ll be there to see what Enterasys’ next move will be.
I really think that your IAM is worth a thorough look for anyone utilizing BYOD. Being from the medical industry, we are always looking for ways to ensure the privacy of the information being transmitted in the utilization of BYOD.
Sorry, I submitted too soon. I think your draft of a BYOD policy brings up lots of good points and issues that need to be discussed in any organization.
Being in the medical industry, we are dealing with the bring your own device ( byod ) issue from an HIPAA stand point, and how it applied to hospitals who are dealing with doctors and nurses who are texting patient information and files.
Doctors are going to be resistant to things like the hospital being able to access their phones and look through all the data.
The bigger issue for us and any business is that your workers BYOD devices not only get hacked, but they are frequently lost or stolen, and much of the emails and texts are on the phone!
Smartphones and iPads are a real problem, since doctors like viewing patient data, files and images on them, and iMessage is not HIPAA compliant, just like email.
It is this sending of patient data to personal devices that can be lost, which opens up a lot of legal issues for hospitals and doctors.
While the large enterprise solutions having a deeply integrates system where the IT department takes control of the device or provides workers with devices, in a hospital and business setting I am hearing that this can be an issue or barrier to these kinds of systems.
Looking around, we did find a way to at least protect text messaging and protect the hospital from lawsuits concerning HIPAA issues related with BYOD by using Tigertext; which while not as integrated as the large enterprise solutions, offers some really good benefits, especially cost and device flexibility.
IT managers, but also employees are really going to have to be aware of all the different solutions available for BYOD and security – especially smartphones and iPADs.
Organization are really going to have to develop good BYOD agreements and policies, since BYOD is only going to get bigger.
Resources:
http://byod.us/bring-your-own-device-importance-of-defining-business-objectives/
http://www.hhs.gov/ocr/privacy/hipaa/administrative/securityrule/index.html
http://www.tigertext.com
Thanks for your comments! It’s always interesting to hear how verticals are dealing with BYOD, especially when it comes to privacy and security.