Wondering what MDM is? Check out this clip from my Mobile Device Management: Executive Briefing course on Pluralsight!
Video Summary
Here are the key points from the video:
- Introduction to Mobile Device Management (MDM): MDM tools help manage and secure mobile devices like smartphones, tablets, and laptops, offering centralized control over updates, app installations, and security policies.
- Importance of MDM: With the widespread use of mobile devices for work, MDM solutions ensure corporate data remains secure, even if a device is lost or stolen, by enforcing security measures like passwords, encryption, and remote wiping.
- Capabilities of MDM: MDM solutions allow IT professionals to enforce security policies, such as requiring passwords, enabling data encryption, and ensuring devices are updated with the latest security patches. They can also remotely wipe devices if necessary.
- Managing Different Devices: MDM tools can manage devices running the latest operating systems from Apple (iOS, iPadOS, macOS), Google (Android), and Microsoft (Windows). Despite configuration differences, the end features for IT administrators are similar across platforms.
- Introduction to Mobile Application Management (MAM): MAM solutions address the “Bring Your Own Device” (BYOD) trend by allowing organizations to manage work-related apps and data on personal devices. They enable remote wiping of work data without affecting personal information and provide an enterprise app store for delivering and managing app licenses.
For more information, read the transcript blog below, or watch the video above!
Video Transcript
Hello and welcome to this executive briefing on mobile device management. My name is Vlad Catrinescu, and I will be your instructor for this course. In this executive briefing, we will first learn about the goal of mobile device management tools, how they can help your organization, as well as the pros and cons of mobile device management. Let’s start by discussing why we even need mobile device management solutions. Isn’t it crazy to think that about 20 years ago, the smartphone as we know it was simply something that you saw in science fiction movies, and the coolest phone you could have was a flip phone with a 2-inch screen? A lot has changed in the mobile phone space, and today almost everyone around the globe has a smartphone that is able to send and receive emails, view documents, or even work with custom line-of-business applications. According to a recent survey by Samsung on businesses with over 100 employees, over 93% of employees use their smartphones for work every single day. Furthermore, many tablets can now offer the same applications and productivity as a laptop, with the added benefit of being light and mobile. As mobile devices allow you to stay logged into applications and save documents offline, what happens if an employee loses their device or their device gets stolen? Even worse, what happens if that employee doesn’t even have a passcode or a PIN required to unlock their phone? An ill-intentioned individual could access your private data and cause financial and legal harm to your organization. This is where mobile device management solutions can come in to help.
So, what is a mobile device management solution? Mobile device management, often simply called MDM, is an industry term for the administration of mobile devices such as smartphones, tablet computers, and laptops. The goal of mobile device management tools is to secure mobile devices and corporate data. Mobile device management solutions offer IT professionals a centralized way to manage mobile devices in your environment. In an MDM solution, you can first of all see a list of all the devices enrolled in your MDM tool, make sure they’re on the latest update, see where they are in the world, what apps they have installed, and more. By using an MDM solution, you can also apply certain policies to devices. If we take a look at some example security policies, you could first of all force every single device to use a PIN code or a password to unlock the device. You can also configure the minimum complexity requirements and, for example, if the device should be wiped after a certain number of failed attempts. Staying on the password topic, you could also force or disable biometrics such as a fingerprint or face to be used to unlock your phone. You can enforce data encryption on the device, therefore making sure that even if someone tries to take out the storage from the device, they would not be able to read it. Another interesting feature can be forcing users to use the latest security updates so your employees do not fall victim to known security bugs. You can also use a mobile device management solution to wipe the device remotely if a user’s device gets lost or stolen. However, not all MDM features are around security. You can also pre-configure features such as VPNs, deploy applications, or remotely debug certain issues that a user might have.
Now that we know what you can do with an MDM solution, what devices can you manage with it? In terms of devices that can be managed by mobile device management tools, most MDM solutions can manage devices running the latest operating systems by the main three players in the field, which are Apple with their Apple iOS for smartphones, Apple iPadOS for tablets, and macOS for laptops. We also, of course, have Google with Android on both their smartphones and tablets, as well as Microsoft with their Windows operating system. Now, I know we all have our favorite operating systems, and while from a configuration point of view there are some differences between how Google Android and Apple’s mobile operating systems work with MDM solutions, the features provided in the end for IT administrators and users are similar. Both Google and Apple are investing in making sure that enterprise users can manage their mobile devices properly, and in every new version of their operating systems, they are adding capabilities to make it easier. As for Microsoft, their Windows operating system was always built for the enterprise and contains very advanced device management capabilities.
Now that we know the basics that mobile device management solutions allow us to control devices, how do we handle the “Bring Your Own Device” or BYOD trend where employees use their own personal devices for both personal and work applications? This is where mobile application management comes in. While mobile device management allows us to manage the device, today we are in a world where users like to bring their own devices and use them for work purposes. Your employees also value the separation of work and personal information on their mobile devices. Everyone understands why the employer needs to be able to wipe or control work data, but they shouldn’t have the right to control family pictures on that same device. This is where mobile application management, or MAM for short, comes in. With a mobile application management solution, when an employee leaves the company, you can remotely wipe the information only from the applications related to work, keeping all personal information intact. MAM solutions allow you to deliver apps for employees through an enterprise app store as well as manage application licenses.
