BYOD influences enterprise mobile security
The rapid proliferation of consumer mobile devices is changing the traditional IT environment in enterprises, as 90 percent of enterprises have already deployed mobile devices, with smartphones being most widely deployed, according to a survey by Gartner. Eighty-six percent of enterprises surveyed said that they plan to deploy media tablets this year.
Respondents came from organizations with 500 or more employees and an in-house data center in the United States, the United Kingdom, Germany, Australia, Brazil, Russia, India and China (BRIC), and Japan. The survey was conducted in October through November of 2011. The survey centered on the deployment status of, and plans for mobile device adoption, BYOD) policy and investment in data centers and adopting technology drivers, including hosted virtual desktop (HVD) for enterprise mobility.
“Healthy growth in smartphone and media tablet shipments over the next five years will enable a much higher level of IT consumerization than is currently possible,” said Chae-Gi Lee, research director at Gartner. “Enterprises should recognize this and look to ‘mobile enable’ their IT infrastructure for employees to meet the growing demand for mobile device use in the enterprise IT environment.”
A further impact of consumerization is the proliferation of BYOD in enterprises. Gartner’s survey found that many enterprises are allowing personal mobile devices to connect to the enterprise network. BYOD demand was higher in the BRIC countries where more Generation Y (Gen Y) employees are working. With the proliferation of BYOD, there are many security issues for enterprises to consider before they invest in mobile computing.
According to the survey, the top issues were “use of privately owned devices” and “deployment of new enterprise mobile platforms.” Enterprises should focus on mobile data protection (MDP), network access control (NAC), and mobile device management (MDM) tools to support their BYOD and new enterprise mobile platform efforts. These technology factors are essential to establish a standard mobile platform for enterprises.
Many of the enterprises surveyed indicated that they provide technical support for personal devices — 32 percent of smartphones, 37 percent of tablets and 44 percent of laptops. However, the results around technical support varied significantly between regions, with 28 percent of respondents in non-BRIC countries receiving technical support for connecting personal devices versus 44 percent in BRIC countries.
“Mature countries consider BYOD programs as bringing with them both legal and technical issues, whereas emerging countries only see technical issues. For instance, mature regions are more concerned with security and data privacy regulations for immature MDM than emerging regions,” Mr. Lee said. “In BRIC countries, employee turnover can be high in some sectors, leading to more theft of devices and data. BYOD and virtualization can reduce those enterprise losses.”
Gartner believes that BYOD is an inevitable requirement and recommends that a mobility strategy team should be established as part of the IT department for data management and control. In addition, enterprises should create a BYOD policy for balancing cost control and reimbursement.
In terms of investment areas for enterprise mobility, the survey revealed that non-BRIC countries have achieved much progress in terms of data center modernization. As a result, when personal mobile devices are allowed to be used in the network and across data center infrastructure within the enterprise, businesses from non-BRIC countries indicated that they would need to invest in and improve their architecture in order to allow for the deployment of mobile devices. This is because non-BRIC countries are more interested in security and privacy regulation than BRIC countries.
Investment in HVD adoption is slightly higher in BRIC countries, where 22 percent of respondents indicated they had already deployed HVDs, against 20 percent in non-BRIC countries. In terms of companies that have already implemented, are currently implementing or plan to implement HVDs in the next 12 months, 91 percent of BRIC countries will have transformed their traditional desktop PC client environment to HVD by 2013. In contrast, 67 percent of respondents in non-BRIC countries said the same.