The Flexible Architecture for Containerization Management
– David Appelbaum, Moka5′s senior vice president of marketing, says:
One of the universal truths of today’s Enterprise is that client computing has become highly dynamic and unpredictable. Whether it’s a salesperson constantly on a plane, or someone at headquarters bringing their MacBook from home, the confluence of multiple client platforms, multiple employee types, and multiple operating scenarios, have created huge management and security challenges for IT. Moreover, according to IDC, by 2015, the mobile workforce will equal 1.3 billion, or 37% of the global workforce. If you include employees who access enterprise email and data on their tablets or smartphones, this number will be significantly higher.
Which brings us to the second universal truth – client standardization in the Enterprise no longer exists. Today’s IT organization must manage technology diversity in ways unimaginable just five years ago. Not only are there different clients to manage – PCs, Macs, smartphones and tablets, personal and corporate owned – each end-user is likely to use two or three devices to access their work. At the same time, the workforce is both local and remote, contractor and salaried, while operations are local, mobile or remote. Lastly, this heterogeneity extends to the back-end infrastructure as well. While endpoint management and provisioning is traditionally deployed and administered on-premises; remote and cloud based approaches are starting to be evaluated and implemented on a more regular basis.
This is a huge shift for IT where for so many years client-side infrastructure was a standard WinTel PC and associated server-based endpoint management systems from Microsoft, IBM, Symantec, etc. Today that standardization is going the way of the mainframe – still existing in pockets but rapidly diminishing in prominence.
While various vendors have tried to solve these problems, there is no magic bullet. These solutions tend to fall into two distinct categories – either delivery of a virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) or by managing mobile hardware and configuration via mobile device management (MDM). Both these approaches fail for a variety of reasons including but not limited to issues around mobility, network connectivity, complexity, and user dissatisfaction. There is mounting pressure on IT to increase their velocity to enable greater flexibility, agility, and productivity for their workers and contractors – while ensuring client-side performance, productivity and privacy.
The Shift of From Datacenter to Cloud…?
In December 2013, Katy Huberty of Morgan Stanley issued a note that summarized all the reasons why enterprise IT vendors would be hurt by a growing move away from traditional datacenters. According to an online article on Barrons.com, “based on data she (Huberty) argues supports a shift in computing workloads away from traditional datacenters to the newer hosted facilities offered by Amazon.com (AMZN) and others.”
Much of Huberty’s data comes from her ongoing surveys of enterprise CIOs. In October 2013, 55% of companies said they “expect to run some workloads in the public cloud by the end of 2013. That number will grow to 72% of companies by the end of 2014. Workload migration is also accelerating with early adopters running 18% of workloads in the public cloud – a number that we expect to grow to 23% by the end of 2014.”
This obviously sounds like significant numbers, and is quite impressive on first hearing, but in reading deeper, her notes show that Huberty is specifically talking only about first wave workloads moving to hosted environments (such as specific applications and data analysis activities), from on-premises datacenters. Although limited implementations have occurred, most organizations aren’t prepared or willing to move their management and security infrastructure to the cloud. At the same time, attempting to manage and secure heterogeneous endpoints that are constantly on the move or located in low-bandwidth parts of the world from on-premises installations may also be impractical.
The bottom-line is the more client-side computing continues to transform into this highly dynamic, heterogeneous, and extremely mobile operational profile, the less likely that legacy management and security systems will be able to deliver a satisfactory solution – whether on-premises or in the cloud.
One Size Fits All – Never Fits Anyone
If legacy approaches such as MDM or VDI don’t work, why do so many organizations continue to try to use them for their changing client needs? Many enterprises already have a large investment in these systems and although this doesn’t necessarily impede other technologies from being adopted, it makes it unlikely an organization would totally abandon one for the other – even if it proved to better meet the needs of the majority of Enterprise clients. Change is hard and nowhere is it harder to embrace than in Enterprise IT – largely due to the risks associated with change and the money already invested in legacy technology. However, it should be abundantly clear: if IT is going to successfully manage the new client reality in the Enterprise, they’re going to need to acknowledge one size can’t possibly fit all – a single architecture can’t accommodate the current diversity of use cases, platforms, operating environments, and deployment options.
Moka5 Enterprise AnyWare Delivers the Flexibility, Security, and Velocity IT Most Needs Now.
Moka5 Enterprise AnyWare delivers the core end-user computing management and security functions IT needs for today’s highly dynamic and mobile computing landscape via a unified and distributed architecture centrally managed by a common console. Through the use of secure, locally executing, centrally managed containers, Moka5 Enterprise AnyWare enables the widest range of infrastructure deployment options: on-premises, cloud, or anywhere in between.
For example, an IT organization may have a large existing on-premises deployment for their corporate BYOD/CYOD program. Then, IT is asked to quickly deploy a new group of remote contractors. In this scenario, cloud deployment via Amazon Web Services may be the right approach. The flexibility to choose which type of deployment is best for a particular scenario or user group is possible because of how Moka5 is architected and the flexibility inherent in the Enterprise AnyWare infrastructure.
Moka5 Enterprise AnyWare delivers on four of the most desired management solution attributes for both deployment and end-user interaction: flexibility, manageability, user experience and security.
Flexibility – Realistically, most companies are not yet hosting their entire IT infrastructure in the cloud, but many do have users who are best served through cloud deployment. Using Moka5 Enterprise AnyWare, IT can now dynamically allocate client management resources between cloud and the datacenter as needed – whether for performance, cost reduction, or to simplify management of any device requiring access to sensitive corporate information over any network. The choice is yours – on-premises, cloud or a hybrid model – Moka5 supports them all.
Manageability – Cloud deployment can quickly add additional client management and security capacity without increased overhead, cost and complexity, but it’s not the only deployment option. No matter where you choose to deploy, all users are managed from one central management console. Over 130 corporate and security policies can be set from the central console along with scheduling distribution of a single image or an enterprise-wide update.
User Experience – No matter how it’s deployed, Moka5’s end-user computing emphasizes a superior end-user experience. Moka5 products utilize client-side virtualization, which means a virtual container is copied to each endpoint. Each container contains the corporate operating system, applications, middleware, settings, files, and documents – it’s essentially a corporate laptop image. This siloed, self-contained digital workspace allows users to work offline or in low bandwidth locations. In addition, users can view video or use VoIP from inside the container, something impossible with traditional VDI. Lastly, IT can enable a “Rejuvenate” option that allows users to return the user’s container to the last known pristine image. The user is back up and running in a few minutes, without a lengthy Help Desk call, visit to the nearest IT office, shipping the computer, or completely reimaging the machine.
Security – Infrastructure must be secure no matter where it is installed. Moka5 Enterprise AnyWare separates and encrypts communications to the secure container (policy changes, software updates, security patches) from the business traffic that takes place inside the container. Regular business traffic utilizes the organization’s existing security capabilities such as a VPN, and never puts an untrusted host computer on the network. It provides industry-leading security for protecting corporate data and network resources on any device, even when used offline, on personal or unprotected machines.
In addition, IT can remotely wipe a workspace from a lost, stolen, or obsolete device – corporate or personal – with the push of a button. It is the only mobile technology that offers un-tethered, device-aware, and secure access on public and private networks.
Conclusion
The cliché goes that the only constant is change and nothing is changing more rapidly then Enterprise client computing. As IT strives to keep pace with a constant stream of new devices, locations, mobility, and employee types, not to mention unknowable network conditions and available bandwidth, they need a solution built from the ground up to truly master change.
Moka5’s Enterprise AnyWare provides the needed flexibility, velocity, security, and end-user performance through secure container management regardless of network coverage. This enables IT to easily support whatever new business initiative comes down from the executive suite – such as BYO or CYO, remote/outsourced development, new foreign branches, or a corporate merger or acquisition. Whatever the challenge, Moka5 simplifies endpoint management from both the device side and the infrastructure side with support for on-premises, cloud or both. Moka5 allows IT to manage all this diversity through a single common console. This flexible architecture for container management enables IT to meet the constantly changing needs of their organizations and their end-users.
About Moka5
Moka5 delivers a secure, device-aware, digital workspace across any network – creating a highly elastic and mobile Enterprise perimeter with significantly less management overhead than legacy VDI or mobility solutions. Using the Moka5 platform, Enterprises can achieve greater agility, competitive advantage, and business velocity. To learn more, visit www.moka5.com.
