BYOD: Infrastructure Requirements & the Effect on Business Processes

Transcription

1 BYOD: Infrastructure Requirements & the Effect on Business Processes By Philip Clarke Research Analyst, Nemertes Research Executive Summary Increasingly, employees no longer must be tethered to an Ethernet port or power plug to complete their workday. Rather, these employees need only a Wi- Fi or cellular link for connectivity to the enterprise. This trend stems not only from the nature of these workers tasks but also the growth of mobility and mobile devices as true content creation engines. Enterprise- enabled mobile devices are no longer the domain of only salespeople, field workers, and ipad- toting executives. Most employees are now choosing their devices and associated work habits based on a combination of their daily job requirements and personal preferences. Accordingly, this paper will examine emerging work models, supporting security and infrastructure adoption and the devices that are driving this growth. As bring your own device (BYOD) purchasing models continue to flourish within the enterprise, IT professionals remain unconvinced that offloading device and monthly fees to the employee outweigh the security and direct costs of BYOD- supporting infrastructure. Along with other new work trends, this report will review the pros and cons of teleworking and how wireless- only workers are changing how companies view the importance of WLAN. Readers will walk away with a clear perspective on what is driving wireless- only work, what they should do to enable it, what infrastructure requirements IT should address, and the productivity, monetary, and overall success to expect. The Issue The growth in mobile workers is driving the adoption of faster, more secure, and more integrated wireless technologies. The promise of Wireless Local Area Networks (WLAN) and 4G cellular as enabling technologies are coming to fruition - not as convenience or back- up to wired Ethernet, but as primary access methods for many employees and their endpoints. Companies investments in wireless technologies reflect a) an understanding with the exception of a few holdouts that it s required for mobility and b) a few fundamental and powerful cultural changes taking place in the enterprise. First and foremost, a growing number of employees are demonstrating Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 1

2 their preference for mobile devices as work tools for all but the most computationally demanding tasks. Laptops and even desktop PCs still have their place, but only as a necessity as tablet architecture catches up. Additionally, employees are validating their changing preferences in the devices they bring to work, which are largely tablets, smartphones or laptops/hybrids rather than corporate- provisioned endpoints. With this shift in devices, work habits and processes, IT professionals continue to face the challenging task of ensuring corporate resources remain secure, while fostering infrastructure that enables employees device, mobile work, and instant information access requirements. To accomplish these ostensibly conflicting goals of marrying security with enablement, IT departments are adopting solutions such as Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Mobile Application Management (MAM), Secure Document Shares (SDS), Virtual Desktop Interface (VDI) and robust, high capacity WLANs. BYOD & the New Mobile Workforce Underscoring and driving the new mobile workforce are the popularity of consumer- oriented devices and the rapid acceptance of employee- owned devices (a trend known as BYOD, or Bring Your Own Device). In only a couple of years, the average organization s mobile device inventory has shifted from nearly all Blackberry to 45% ios (iphones and ipads) and 24% Android (smartphones and tablets). These devices app- centric interfaces have changed the way employees tackle work and personal tasks, as workers become more accustomed to using apps to access, create, and even learn information. The upshot? Businesses are changing their processes to also fit this world of apps, resulting in procedure redesign and development that require best practices to succeed. BlackBerry s Fall, ios Rise Although the enterprise stalwart BlackBerry still comprises 30% of companies devices, this number will drop significantly by the end of Further demonstration that consumerization and BYOD are impacting BlackBerry s bottom line, the companies enterprise focus has shifted in acknowledgement of ios dominance. BlackBerry has modernized their platform in version 10 of its mobile OS with a fully- touch based interface however, the popularity of ios and Android and their much larger and complete app catalog s make BlackBerry a difficult sell for both employees and corporate provisioning bodies. BYOD Benefits & Cost Savings BYOD continues to grow within the enterprise as a popular purchasing model, reflected in the 69% of organizations using it either as part of a larger purchasing strategy or as their sole policy (19%). Top examples of BYOD s benefits include allowing employees and executives to use devices of their preference, associated employee productivity increases, sparking lasting IT and business unit working Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 2

3 relationships, and expected cost savings, particularly after organizations pay off BYOD- supporting capital infrastructure investments. Figure 1: BYOD & Combination Models Less Expensive Than IT-Purchased Though BYOD lets companies offload device, monthly, and some app expenses to employees, infrastructure such as MDM, MAM, SDS can make the tradeoff an expensive proposition, at least in the early phases of deployment. Nemertes gathered data on mobility budgets, including device and service costs, as well as associated security, app development, and WLAN infrastructure. By correlating mobile budgets per employee with purchasing model, we find the most expensive model is when IT purchases the devices ($820 per employee). Companies that only use employee- purchased devices still spend $500 per employee, and those that have adopted a combination model (business units, IT, and employees buy devices) spend the least ($350 per employee) These figures underscore that a) BYOD is cheaper than IT- purchased today and b) is even less expensive if it s targeted to specific roles where BYOD lends itself well, i.e. knowledge workers, travelling, field or teleworkers and salespeople (Please see Figure 1). BYOD might prove to be the least expensive option over time as supporting systems capital expenses are amortized and/or diluted by the scale of BYOD deployments. Conversely, the costs of supporting a larger, more diverse BYOD population may end up being more expensive for IT departments, outweighing the potential savings. Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 3

4 BYOD, Mobility Aligned With Business Process Initiatives In many companies, the complexities and cross- departmental considerations of enabling mobility serve as a showcase for how IT should work side- by- side with business units to ensure both company usage and technology requirements are met. Some popular initiatives that CIOs are engaging in with requirements that parallel mobility enablement projects include: Embedded networks and facilities Business strategy and product development Logistics and automation To the point, 100% of companies engaging in these joint CIO and business- unit projects use BYOD as their only purchasing model. Further exploration of this link between cutting edge process design and BYOD strategies reveals companies involved in these projects also report the highest overall mobility success. Telework & Telecommuting Like BYOD, the promise of cost reductions with remote work and telecommuting help companies to drive initiatives to support virtual work, resulting in better supporting infrastructure and improved or lower- cost business processes. With our plans on reducing real- estate costs, we will integrate [mobile devices] with other applications and provide better support for home/teleworkers, including better integration with SharePoint, Exchange, LiveMeeting and Lync, says the senior architect of a very large, global manufacturing firm. In organizations that expect their full- time telecommuting workforce to increase from 2012 to 2013 report 7.1% of their workforce is wireless- only, meaning they never use a wired connection throughout their workday (versus 4.3% and 1% wireless- only workers in companies reporting full- time telecommuting as being flat or decreasing, respectively). Wireless Workforce & Infrastructure The average office building of yesteryear was well connected with wired Ethernet but not wireless, driven by a workforce equipped with heavy laptops and heavier desktops. Accordingly, companies approached WLAN (Wi- Fi) as a convenience technology, resulting in spotty or location- specific deployments. Fast- forward to today, and most employees are not only using WLAN and/or cellular as their primary method of access, many use wireless as their only way of connecting to the enterprise. These wireless- only users comprise a small, but growing segment of the workforce. (Please See Figure 2). However, Nemertes expects this number is likely to see a bigger jump in as tablets move from ancillary, consumption- focused devices to PC replacements. The demands these workers and their increasingly wireless devices Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 4

5 place on WLAN and cellular infrastructure requires companies to rethink how they enable local or remote wireless access.!"#$%#&%'()*+(,%-./0%.1% ).3%6%-7-%8-#-%% Wireless Only Users 20.00% 18.00% 16.00% 14.00% 12.00% 10.00% 8.00% 6.00% 7.60% 9.56% 11.30% 4.00% 2.00% 0.00% Figure 2: Steady Climb: Wireless Only Workers % WLAN As Primary Mode of Access WLAN deployments within the enterprise continue to grow, both in terms of capacity and functionality as companies look to support a variety of wireless initiatives. Though almost 85% of companies have upgraded their WLANs to newer n access points (APs), capacity concerns remain. Enterprises are planning to add 81% capacity to their WLANs through Moreover, companies are provisioning 74% of this growth specifically for tablets and smartphone usage. Cost considerations are also driving companies to deploy WLAN; with more devices requiring it and workers preferring wireless over wired, the expense of wired connections makes Ethernet cabling redundant. However, IT organizations pushing WLAN as a viable alternative or replacement for wired connectivity should expect resistance. A problem we face is that out facilities budgets haven t evolved with the times, so [while] we know that WLAN is $1 per square foot, facilities doesn't include IT in their thought process, says the global network infrastructure architect of a very large manufacturing company. Still, the value proposition for WLAN or wireless- only deployments continues to solidify, especially as mobile devices become more powerful and empowered within organizations. Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 5

6 WLAN For MDM, MAM & More Vendor offerings in the WLAN space have matured substantially to offer companies more mobile and particularly BYOD- specific functionality over the last few years. Nemertes coined the term network- based mobile device management or NMDM, a descriptor of capabilities designed to extend mobile security and enablement to the edge of the network. Figure 3: MDM and MAM adoption Top Mobile Security Particularly well- suited to companies with large BYOD populations, NMDM allows companies to start applying advanced network functionality that are based off of both long- standing network standards and vendor specific functionality, including: App- level Quality of Service (QoS) Device fingerprinting (a snapshot of a connecting device s operating system, security stance and installed apps) Radio Frequency (RF) optimizations, Software- defined antennae techniques Air- time sharing to maintain network speed across devices Anti- clustering tools that reflect the way employees collaborate Adjacent tools, such as virtual private networks (VPN) and virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) along with network monitoring tools enables IT professionals to have a complete picture of the mobile devices on their network (Please see Figure 3.). Essentially, NMDM products enable end- to- end mobile device security, giving IT Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 6

7 departments the confidence to start developing mobile app strategies in the face of mounting security issues. Mobile Security Infrastructure Trends BYOD and consumer- focused devices have made traditional mobility infrastructure, such as Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) and Exchange ActiveSync (EAS), far less effective. These systems are essentially the forerunners to modern day MDM, but lag behind in terms of capability to support the special requirements of ios and Android devices. Accordingly, companies are adopting MDM solutions that fully support their growing consumer- oriented device population at a rapid pace; 46% of companies are using a solution today, with a 84% of organizations expecting to have it deployed by the end of Complementary to MDM, many companies are getting their MAM as part of a MDM/MAM bundle. This makes sense, but companies are lagging behind with their deployments of MAM features as they first ensure 84% of companies expect to be using MDM by the end of 2014 devices are secure before worrying about app delivery. Although 29% of organizations are using MAM today, another 18% expect to deploy it through 2013 and an additional 18% of enterprises are evaluating it. Increasingly bundled with MDM, 29% of companies use SDS today, with another 18% of organizations looking to deploy it through MDM, MAM and SDS are fundamental to ensuring that mobility is properly secured, enabled and distributed based on identity. As companies devices populations become increasingly diverse due to BYOD and consumerization, mobile security infrastructure including NMDM, MDM, MAM and SDS are necessary to both secure and enable mobile endpoints. 4G & Cellular Considerations Most organizations are doing everything in their power to mitigate any hindering effects cellular access might be having on mobility growth and employee productivity. We are building our own DAS [Distributed Antenna Systems] and letting mobile operators bid on using them for office locations and/or sites that have really poor cellular coverage, says the manager of telecommunications at a very large, global manufacturing firm. Organizations like this are involved in projects that underscore a trend 57.1% of companies continue to report: Sporadic or insufficient cellular availability is affecting enterprise adoption of 4G data. Early 4G offers speeds ranging from 8 Mbps to 40 Mbps in real world tests, speeds which are comparable to many small business- class wireline solutions. So, even with decreasing data caps, rising data and voice costs and reliance on a non- enterprise network, 4G continues to be an attractive mobility enabler for many organizations. Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 7

8 Conclusions and Recommendations Mobility and BYOD continue to drive and enable myriad of forces within the enterprise, including different work patterns ranging from wireless- only to telecommuting workforces to IT looking at business processes in a completely new light. BlackBerry has given way to more consumer- oriented devices running ios and Android, highlighting an inflection point in not only how companies see the role of mobility today, but also how employees prefer to work, learn, create and consume. The infrastructure requirements to properly leverage mobile devices are substantial, including mature technologies such as MDM, MAM and SDS along with nascent offerings such as NMDM. WLAN and cellular are the only way for mobile devices to connect, a fact reflected in the amount of effort and investment companies are putting forth to ensure their wireless assets are up to the task. Companies that look at mobility as an opportunity rather than a consumer- driven security risk and/or money drain, are ideally suited to enjoy the productivity of a truly enabled workforce. Nemertes recommends you consider the following: ± IT professionals should review BYOD, ensuring that there are good reasons for deploying it; some top reasons include allowing employee preferences, mobility success aspirations and even a showcase for the advantages of IT/business- unit joint ventures. ± When evaluating BYOD mainly as a way to save money, IT staffs should look at supporting infrastructure costs over normal ROI/NPV cycle to see if cost per device starts trending downwards towards the end of this cycle versus more traditional or existing device provisioning methods. Organizations can use these findings to inform whether or not BYOD is worth it, and for what types of employees. ± IT workers should ensure they have the right supporting infrastructure for mobility and BYOD: Intelligent Access Points (AP)s, WLAN & WAN capacity, virtual desktop interface (VDI) or terminal services for application access as needed, as well as a VPN endpoint client and infrastructure. ± Companies looking to use NMDM for a converged NAC, MDM and MAM platform, should review the costs of purchasing enabled AP(s) and other WLAN infrastructure many offerings are enabled through a standard- based OS to work on any WLAN. ± Given MAM and apps growing role in how people perceive information, IT professionals should review whether they have substantial enough apps to warrant MAM, or if this would be more of a cost burden. About Nemertes Research: Nemertes Research is a research-advisory and strategicconsulting firm that specializes in analyzing and quantifying the business value of emerging technologies. You can learn more about Nemertes Research at our Website, or contact us directly at research@nemertes.com. Nemertes Research 2013 ± ± ± DN2565 8