Webinar Recording: Take Control of your Network & Manage BYOD

Posted on May 15, 2013 by netutils

The more devices employees bring to work, the more difficult it becomes for network managers to ensure a good user experience. BYOD (Bring-Your-Own-Device) complicates how you manage bandwidth consumption and assess and fix application performance issues. View our webinar and discover how to quickly restore order to your network. Exinda can help you address the challenges of BYOD and assure a reliable user experience by improving visibility, optimisation and control—allowing your users to be productive from anywhere, anytime and on any device.

BYOD: Understanding and Planning Equals Success

Posted on March 12, 2013 by netutils

By Malcolm Orekoya, Network & Security Specialist, Netutils

Views expressed in this post are original thoughts posted by Malcolm Orekoya, Network & Security Specialist, Netutils. These views are his own

We are now all too aware of the proliferation of mobile devices, such as smartphones and tablets in enterprises today and employers supporting a bring-your-own-device (BYOD) environment in order to support the growing number of employees who want to use their devices to work at home, at the office and while on the move is definitely on the rise. But what is the right approach to a successful BYOD implementation? Why at such an early stage of the BYOD popularity are so many enterprises struggling to correctly implement a BYOD environment?

Similar to starting up a new business, there has to be a good understanding of what one is trying to achieve (like having a business plan complete with forecasts and your bottom line), a good knowledge of all the variables involved (like knowing your market and competitors) and there needs to be a solid foundation from which to start (like having financial support through savings, investors or your bank). Today a lot of enterprise BYOD implementations start with the end user (usually a few high level executives) wanting to use their personally owned devices to access corporate resources while in the office and out of the office. As a result, IT departments begin their BYOD planning by starting with a small group of users, then their devices, then the resources they want to access, followed by how to implement control and then finally, a BYOD policy is formulated and rolled out to the larger employee population. In my opinion this is the wrong approach and sets the enterprise up for running into numerous problems down the line.

Irrespective of how the BYOD conversation starts within any enterprise, once the decision has been made to adopt BYOD across the network (i.e. it has gained the organisations support), a rethink needs to take place which properly considers the users, devices, resources, control and enterprise wide BYOD policy that would apply to everyone. The sequence of considering these variables when planning a BYOD environment should look something like shown below and not the other way around.

BYOD Policy → Resources →Control → Devices → Users

Each one of these considerations affects and ties in with the next one. The BYOD policy should stipulate that which the enterprise requires its employees to agree (this policy should be signed by employees) and this will be influenced by the type of resource access required by the employees as well as the control utilised. For example, if an employee wants to bring in their own device to gain full access to corporate resources (say similar to what he or she has on their desktop computer,) the BYOD policy might state that the employee is required to allow IT to install a piece of software on their device that will allow IT to control and validate the posture of the users device (for instance check the Anti-Virus is up to date and possibly wipe the device if it’s lost or stolen.) If, however, the employee would rather not give this level of control over his or her device to IT, then they may only be granted limited access to corporate resources (for instance use of the internet and maybe web email.) Furthermore, the control required by the enterprise would determine the devices that it supports, which in turn could determine what devices users end up purchasing, although the popularity of some devices, such as Apple and Android devices, could quite possibly dictate both.

Enterprises need to start thinking about their BYOD implementation planning before actually implementing BYOD across their network. Considering the variables in the right order avoids putting the cart before the horse and would help avoid problems in the future. Having said that, it is worth mentioning that although planning for BYOD should start from the left to right of the variables mentioned earlier, actually implementing BYOD should be considered from right to left; I’ll explain. Implementing BYOD starts by considering the level of trust attributed to a user and/or device, which is usually determined by users and/or devices successfully authenticating or validating their identity to a trusted entity, followed by the authorisation (access control) subsequently given to corporate resources, where the level of trust determines the level of access granted. All of which must ultimately comply with the organisation’s BYOD policy.

User Trust→Device Trust → Access Control/Authorisation →Resources→BYOD Policy

Again, each variable ties in with the other variables next to it, but it is important that enterprises do not make the mistake of starting to write their BYOD policy by first considering the trust attributed to their users.

In conclusion, as I mentioned at the beginning, starting a business almost always involves an understanding of the market, competitors and a business plan before anything begins. The same should be the case with BYOD in the context of the variables mentioned above, only then will your enterprise minimise problems and increase its probability of a successful and worthwhile BYOD environment.

Cloudutils – App Performance in the Cloud. A new solution from Netutils

Posted on December 17, 2012 by netutils

Gartner predicts that by 2015, 42% of the UC market will be in the cloud. This coupled with the exponential increase in BYOD means that your network needs to perform at a higher level to facilitate live interaction and real time communication. As more & more customers demand solutions in the cloud Netutils are proud to launch Cloudutils our collection of cloud solutions including; Guest Access, RADIUS-as-a-Service and App Performance. In this video blog our Marketing Manager, Vanessa Cardwell is joined by Philip Smith, UKI Channel Director from Ipanema to give you a high level overview of our Cloudutils App Performance solution which allows Enterprises to fully take advantage of cloud and internet based applications guaranteeing application performance and delivering full visibility as a service.

Webinar Recording: Your BYOD Policy Part 2: Performance and Scalability

Posted on December 10, 2012 by netutils

Are you concerned with any of the following?

Latency & Interference on your network as a result of increased user activity
Seamlessly managing the performance of applications that require real time communications – like Microsoft Lync
The ability to cost effectively scale and maintain network performance as user demands for access increase

If you are an IT manager or decision maker and identify with one or more of these issues, then please take a look at the recording of our recent webinar. ‘Your BYOD Policy Part 2: Performance & Scalability’. This is the 2nd in our series of webinars covering the Juniper Network’s Simply Connected story. Part 3 will over Reliability & Management and will be held at 11am on Wednesday 16th January 2013. Please register here.

CLOUD – The Changed Face of the Network

Posted on December 3, 2012 by netutils

By Malcolm Orekoya, Network & Security Specialist, Netutils

Views expressed in this post are original thoughts posted by Malcolm Orekoya, Network & Security Specialist, Netutils. These views are his own

So everyone has been talking cloud this and cloud that for what seems like forever now and you can be forgiven for being completely confused at times as to what exactly cloud computing is and why all the fuss. The definition of “cloud computing” on Wikipedia probably sums it up best; “Cloud computing is the use of computing resources (hardware and software) that are delivered as a service over a network (typically the Internet)”+.

The reason for all the confusion is that cloud computing nowadays refers to several services such as Infrastructure as a service (IaaS), Platform as a service (PaaS), Software as a service (SaaS), Desktop as a service (DaaS), Storage as a service (STaaS), Security as a service (SECaaS) and many more variables. To make matters even more confusing, once you have got your head around the concept of cloud, you then have to deal with the options of “private cloud”, “public cloud” or “hybrid cloud”. So why are there so many services moving to some form of cloud?

Well, there are several reasons behind the proliferation of cloud services, but amongst them all the following will almost always fall within the top 5:

Security – This is a major issue for all organisations, from small to large and can be a headache for many IT business decision-makers. The amount of data that is being consumed by today’s users, across data centres around the world is outstanding and the requirement to make sure this data is securely accessed and secured from malicious activity is just as great; whether this is for regulatory/compliance requirements or not. Getting the secure infrastructure (hardware, software, data centre etc.) and expertise needed for today’s networks can be prohibitively expensive and time consuming for organisations, therefore offloading this responsibility to cloud providers makes sense. These providers spend their time and money to provide you with the secure and compliant network that you need, without you having to worry about anything other than your internet connections to the cloud.

Access – People want remote access to as much content as they can possibly get their hands on. Whether it is being able to work from home, an internet café or a pub, users expect to be able to access their personal and corporate data via the internet. In conjunction with this, the other big buzz in the industry “BYOD” (bring you own device) and the overabundance of mobile devices that support this trend, makes providing mobile access to your users at the top the agenda for most IT business decision-makers.

A Forrester Research on Mobility, Cloud and Big Data written in October 2012 reports that “In the last 18 months, 47% of businesses have seen increased demand from end users to bring their own devices to work”++. In order to meet these access demands alongside maintaining security, a lot of organisations find it much easier and cost effective to have part of their network accessible in the cloud and relieve them of the hassle of providing and maintaining the necessary platform to feed this ever growing access need.

Costs – Keeping an eye on the IT budget always plays a major part in any organisations decision making process for any project and being able to reduce costs over time is key. The fact is with the two reasons already mentioned above; any organisation that keeps its entire infrastructure hosted internally will continually have to spend on hardware, software, training and staff in order to keep up with the industry. Cloud services have become increasingly more cost effective and in many cases can provide a more efficient Return-on-Investment (ROI) for many services.

So now that we know what all the cloud fuss is about, why should we jump on the band wagon; for all we know this is all a ‘phase’ and things will soon return back to normal (some hope)? Well I’m sorry to be the bearer of bad news but that is not going to happen, cloud is here to stay for good and is a trend that is not likely to change direction any time soon.

In October 2012 Forrester Research also found that “44% of businesses have seen increased use of cloud services – from software and infrastructure to business processes as-a-service offerings”++ and Cisco’s second annual Global Cloud Index (GCI) has predicted that “within four years, two-thirds of all data centre traffic across the world – as well as workloads – will be cloud based”^.

Whether it’s for personal or business use the cloud has already changed the face of your network, in some cases without users having to do anything; I recently found out that by simply combining the free cloud storage space I get from my Hotmail, Gmail, Amazon, iCloud and Dropbox accounts, I’ve got nearly 30GB of free Storage as a service (STaaS) that I wasn’t even aware of.

The facts are internet bandwidth is cheaper than ever before; home users can now easily boast of 50MB internet connections at home. Internet content and ‘apps’ for work and play are richer and more widely available now than at any other time in history and the means of accessing this rich content via the plethora of fancy mobile devices is so accessible now, even six year olds have smartphones (as I recently found out at a birthday party I attended). The new way of working and playing involves the cloud and there’s no going back now.

Join us on stand 691 at Cloud Expo Europe 29th – 20th January 2013, National Hall Olympia. Find out about Cloudutils* – Cloud Solutions without Compromise. Solutions include Secure RADIUS and Managed Guest Access.

*Cloudutils is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Network (Utilities) Systems Ltd.

+ Source: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cloud_computing

++ Source: Forrester Research http://www.juniper.net/us/en/dm/enterprise-data-center/pdf/Building_For_The_Next_Billion_What_The_New_World_Of_Business_Means_For_The_Network_FINAL.pdf

^ Source: http://www.forbes.com/sites/joemckendrick/2012/10/28/two-thirds-of-the-worlds-data-centers-going-to-cloud-cisco/

Webinar Recording: Your BYOD Policy Part 1: Provisioning and Security

Posted on November 14, 2012 by netutils

Are you concerned with any of the following?

Securely authenticating guest & employee owned mobile devices on your wireless network
Managing the admin overhead when providing network access to your users & guests
Providing mobile network users seamless access to corporate resources
Leakage of corporate data, network contamination and lost devices.

Then please take a look at our recent webinar above. This webinar is the 1st in our series of 4 webinars covering the Juniper ‘Simply Connected Story, please keep an eye out for details of parts 2 ,3 & 4 which cover, Performance, Reliability & Management.

You can register for ‘Your BYOD Policy & The Simply Connected Story Part 2: – Performance & Scalability’ by visiting our registration page here.

BYOD – The Big Questions

Posted on October 31, 2012 by netutils

Like us you’ve probably been asking questions and more questions about BYOD. To quote Stephen Fry ‘No sin in that. We grow wise by asking questions. The right questions.’ So, here our Technical Director, Toby Makepeace grapples with BYOD and answers some of the biggies.

This post contains original thoughts posted by Toby Makepeace, Technical Director, Network (Utilities) Systems Ltd. These views are his own.

BYOD – a threat or an opportunity?

We are all well aware of today’s business challenges brought by the proliferation of mobile devices, new styles of remote working and the associated challenges faced by IT managers in meeting the increased demands for network access from both staff and guests. Those challenges aside, this question is easy for me to answer – opportunity! In my view BYOD brings a massive opportunity to your business. Quite simply the possibility of the increase in productive man hours can only be viewed as a benefit to the business. So, next questions please!

Are businesses prepared? What’s the risk to the business? Are there cost savings to be made? What is the impact on the IT department?

To answer these let’s first cast our minds back to when BlackBerry’s were first being deployed. At the time many felt they were an unnecessary cost and a risk to the business, and would not increase productivity, yet nowadays you’d be hard pushed to find a member of staff who doesn’t feel their BlackBerry or mobile device is a critical part of their everyday business toolkit.

However, I also believe the risk factor still exists and in some cases has not been addressed for these corporate devices. As people move away from BlackBerry to other mobile email systems, a BYOD strategy might help tackle these risk factors by reviewing the corporate policy on mobile devices and re-addressing some of the failings around theft or lost devices and help you move towards a solid Mobile Device Management policy.

With mobile email being the killer application upon which we all rely, let’s take a look at each of these questions in a little more detail:

Are businesses prepared?

Unfortunately the answer here is generally no, but we were not prepared for mobile email either. At that time we needed to invest in the solution that worked for our businesses, so now we need to invest in a BYOD solution that works for our businesses too. It might be just one product that we need, but more likely a suite of products to build a robust BYOD solution.

What’s the risk to the business?

The answer here really comes down to how far you want to take BYOD, and the level of investment required to protect your business. The solution that you take on board should not be any different to a solution you should look to deploy to secure a corporately owned asset like a laptop. Consider if you can increase the level of protection you offer your business by using BYOD as a strategy to implement a solution to secure both BYOD and your corporate assets.

A full Network-Access-Control solution like “Juniper Networks UAC solution” can offer benefits to your business by minimising the risks from both BYOD and corporate devices. This solution can manage devices that are allowed to join the network and control the level of access that they gain based on the identity of the user and the state/health of the device the users are trying to connect with. This way you are able to increase your network security. Now you just need to develop a robust policy around which applications and systems on the network any personally owned devices are able to access.

Are there cost savings to be made?

You are going to need to, and you’d be wise to, invest in a solution to manage and protect your network. However, that aside protecting your network is essential regardless of BYOD. Your organisation could save money on the number of corporate assets like mobile phones and laptops you need to manage and deploy if you fully embrace BYOD. But to my mind the question is not so much about cost savings, but increased productivity.

So, back to our BlackBerry example, I imagine a high percentage of your staff read an email at lunchtime or on their journey home and in most cases will respond and deal with it in their own time. If we removed our corporate mobile email solution and offered a BYOD email solution based on the Juniper Networks’ PULSE Mobile Security Suite and Juniper’s SSL VPN could we save money? I think the answer is yes, and consider this, you might also increase productivity even further as a number of staff will have two devices, one personnel and one business. Which one gets left at home at the weekend or in the evening? Unless you are as sad as me, it is not your business one!

What is the impact on the IT department?

Without a shadow of doubt there will be an impact on the IT department as any solution needs to be deployed and managed. However, an effective integrated solution, based on Juniper’s products like the IC, SA and Junos Pulse make that experience a lot easier to manage. The threat to the network can be effectively managed by a strong policy dynamically enforced by the combination of these solutions, and where a greater level of threat prevention is required the Juniper SRX with IDP unit can be integrated with the whole solution, providing a granular policy control enforcer based on User ID and health of the asset accessing the network.

Conclusion

In my opinion the debate on BYOD should not be examined in isolation, but as an overall enhancement to your whole network security policy. Yes, there will be a cost for set up and deployment, however increased network protection, and minimising down time from virus and malware risks need to be taken into account irrelevant of BYOD. The increase in productivity in staff, will only really been seen over time, but like mobile email, BYOD may also prove to be a true and productive benefit to your business.

And finally … don’t be surprised if you go to your IT department and find a form of BYOD already in use, iPads, smart phones or tablets may already be connected to your network, which belong to your senior executives or the IT team themselves. So, why not ask the IT team if they feel the use of these devices has help them improve their productivity? I bet you’ll be pleasantly surprised by the answer!

IPEXPO 2012 – The Big BYOD Questions

Posted on October 31, 2012 by netutils

Thanks to everyone who visited us on stand recently at IPEXPO 2012. Unsurprisingly BYOD was a big topic. In this video blog we answer some of the key BYOD questions we were asked on stand covering areas like Mobile Device Management, user demands for 24/7 connectivity and security. We hope you find it useful.

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