Nubo Software's UX over IP brings network efficiency to virtual mobile infrastructure

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1 Nubo Software's UX over IP brings network efficiency to virtual mobile infrastructure Analyst: Chris Hazelton 24 Aug, 2015 The fact that mobile computing is now displacing a share of 'traditional computing' in the enterprise is clear. What is less clear is how mobile computing will run in the enterprise. The inherent and ongoing complexity of mobile environments necessitates a flexible set of tools for managing mobile users. Enterprise mobility management (EMM) is more than a collection of competing tools it is the evolving overall toolset that IT can use to support users and control the movement of corporate data outside the enterprise. Over the next few years, enterprise deployments with only mobile device management (MDM) will decline as companies shift their enterprise mobility strategies from a device and asset management focus toward an approach that is centered on data and user management. Enter virtual mobile infrastructure or VMI. The 451 Take Nubo argues that VMI is the ultimate method for mobile app management running mobile apps in the datacenter and not on the device. Ignoring the requirement for a network connection, it is hard to argue with this requirement. Nubo also takes the potential weakness of VMI, user experience, head on with a protocol that emphasizes low bandwidth usage while providing a strong user experience. IT buyers for mobile are very interested in separating work data from personal, particularly on devices that are owned by employees. Today, primarily government and highly regulated industries use VMI, but VMI could appeal to companies that need to isolate data that they feel should not reside on users' devices. This ability to provide zero corporate data footprint on devices could open up VMI to a wider audience. Copyright The 451 Group 1

2 Context Nubo Software was founded in 2011 by CEO Israel Lifshitz, who also founded SysAid Technologies, an IT service management company with over 10,000 customers in 140 countries. Nubo Software launched its VMI product in August The VMI vendor claims to support 20 to 30 concurrent users per VM, and in testing was able to handle 30,000 concurrent users on one physical server. The company is bootstrapped to date, but may look to the venture community. Headquartered in Airport City, Israel, the VMI vendor has 14 employees. Product Offering a virtualized environment on a mobile device, Nubo Software puts a lot of emphasis on the user experience. The degree of interaction between a user and a mobile device is higher than any other enterprise tool, so users' expectations for enterprise tools on these devices is high. VMI's greatest competition comes from native apps on a device, which set the benchmark for performance. Consumer apps often don't deal with data that needs to be secured, and as such have no limitations on performance. Enterprise apps that run on VMI must provide a similar experience even though they reside in a datacenter. Nubo's UX over IP display protocol works to provide a native experience for users with the goal of making VMI transparent to the user. The VMI vendor has a patent pending for its UX over IP remote display protocol. The patent is for a system that controls a display on a client device, such as smartphones, that caches some display data on the device, while transmitting only command- and control-level data from the server to the device. This protocol delivers an Android-based work space that can run on ios, Android and desktop browsers. It automatically adapts to fit any display, whether mobile or desktop. It supports touch gestures such as swipes as well as pinch to zoom. Voice is also supported as an input. Nubo UX over IP allows the VMI vendor to leverage sensors on the device such as positioning data. Differentiation from competitors Part of providing a strong user experience with its UX over IP, Nubo's proprietary transport protocol is lightweight. The VMI vendor claims that the bandwidth used by its protocol does not exceed 250 kilobits/second. Nubo states that its competitors that use a H.264-based protocol, which is designed for video streaming, can go up to 2,000 kilobits/second. This means Nubo is claiming that during peak bandwidth traffic for VMI, between server and the client device, it is eight times more efficient than the competition. Copyright The 451 Group 2

3 How Nubo is deployed is also another area in which the company claims to differentiate itself. Nubo supports multiple users per virtual machine, claiming that concurrent users can be supported per VM. This compares with competitors that spool up one VM per user. This allows Nubo to charge $75 per user per year, which the company claims is only 10% of the cost of virtual desktop infrastructure. Nubo Software's VMI product can be installed as a cloud SaaS offering as well as in on-premises servers. Nubo claims that its competitors are focused on only premises-based deployments. While early adopters are likely to deploy VMI in their own infrastructure, Nubo is positioning itself as ready for customers that are putting corporate data in multi-tenant but secure infrastructure. How VMI works Virtual mobile infrastructure is the installation of a custom mobile OS, primarily Android, in a virtual machine (VM) on remote server in a public or private cloud. Each VM can run multiple user sessions. Each session provides a mobile environment where users can access mobile apps, which are then displayed on a mobile thin client on the user's device. These apps can be the entire spectrum of mobile apps an employee needs, from to line of business-specific apps. These apps do not need to be secured individually because the entire stack is running in a datacenter with encrypted communication between the device and the VM. Similar to virtual desktop infrastructure, this is not a new phenomenon for IT. The main difference between VDI and VMI is cost. Vendors of VMI estimate that it is half the cost of VDI. The thin client can run on any mobile OS, but there are restrictions on how and where this client can run. The thin client can run on ios, but due to its open source nature the virtualized OS is Android. For this reason, the current use cases are primarily on Android. On an Android device, the experience is nearly seamless because the thin client mirrors the entire OS, from the familiar Android home button to in-depth settings menu. Without obvious cues, typical users may have a hard time seeing when they are in the virtualized environment. From our own testing, we can easily see workers spending their day in VMI, depending on the level and frequency of authentication that is required by IT. Why virtual mobile infrastructure With mobile becoming an increasingly important computing platform in the corporate world, agencies and regulated industries that deal with sensitive, secret or high-profile information are looking for ways to implement mobility. There are very real concerns about data being pushed and Copyright The 451 Group 3

4 pulled to mobile devices. To provide mobile access in these environments, purpose-built hardware or repurposed consumer hardware has been used to meet security requirements. This means significant cost for devices that run in the thousands of dollars. The idea of VMI is not to avoid hardware costs, but provide workers with devices that cost as much as a medium to high-end smartphone. Here the idea goes from bring your own device (BYOD), shifting hardware costs to the employee, to VMI, where mobile compute and data are shifted to the cloud. Virtual Mobile Infrastructure (VMI) is emerging as a tool for enterprise mobility as companies want to give access to corporate data without any footprint on the device. There are two key trends that will drive VMI adoption. First, with rapid advancements in mobile devices user expectations and component capabilities create an opportunity to virtualize workloads. Devices with multi-core and multi-function processors to support gaming and HD video are ideal for supporting a virtualized environment for the enterprise. Second, 451 Research's IT Decision Maker survey details that among IT's two biggest concerns by far about mobile security are about loss of IP and securing corporate data on personally owned devices (see table below). VMI can provide significant data loss protection on corporate devices. For employee-owned devices, albeit mostly Android devices, VMI provides a secure silo for corporate data that cannot be accessed by personal applications. Source: 451 Research Copyright The 451 Group 4

5 Competition This is an emerging area; as such, there are only a few players in this space today, but we expect this list to expand. These vendors are a handful of startups and two large vendors. There are no incumbents from the EMM market, but they are more partners for VMI vendors than competitors today. We expect this to change in the next 12 months as VMI gains traction in the government vertical and then bleeds into the commercial space. This will be through acquisitions since VMI requires significant engineering knowledge and time to develop transport protocols for virtualizing data on devices that have highly volatile connectivity. Working with government organizations on VMI for several years, Raytheon commercially launched Trusted Access: Mobile in May As part of the cyber security arm of Raytheon, this VMI offering builds on the company's line of products from its acquisition of Trusted Computing Solutions in late Co-founded by security researchers from Immunity Inc in 2012, Remotium focuses on VMI. Its virtual mobile platform (VMP) was launched at the RSA Conference in February In July 2014, Remotium signed on Hitachi Solutions as a reseller. In September 2014, Macnica Networks also came on as a reseller. Remotium was acquired by Avast in July Hypori was founded in 2012 and came out of stealth in August Hypori's Android Cloud Environment is used by the US Department of Defense. Hypori has also worked with the US Army to move to commercial mobile devices, as well as with the US Air Force's Research Laboratory. Trend Micro's Safe Mobile Workforce was first offered in mid Unlike other VMI vendors, Trend Micro does provide MDM and mobile app management (MAM) alongside VMI. Trend Micro's Safe Mobile Workforce targets Android, ios, Windows Phone, and Windows RT. Sierraware was cofounded by the CTO and VP engineering of Menlo Logic, which was an SSL VPN company acquired by Cavium in In addition to VMI, the company also offers an embedded mobile hypervisor for Android on top of an ARM's TrustZone targeting government and defense, as well as commercial devices. Copyright The 451 Group 5

6 SWOT Analysis Strengths The ability to serve a large number of concurrent users per virtual machine provides a compelling economic argument for going with Nubo Software for VMI. Opportunities According to 451 Research's end user surveys, a high percentage of IT buyers are concerned about the ability to secure corporate data on users' mobile devices, and to prevent the mixing of that data with personal apps and services. Weaknesses As with all VMI offerings, the requirement of a network connection to complete most use cases means that VMI will not appeal to all mobile deployments. Threats As more management and security features are built into modern mobile OSs, the argument for VMI is threatened. However, the ability to have zero data on the end device is still compelling. Reproduced by permission of The 451 Group; This report was originally published within 451 Research's Market Insight Service. For additional information on 451 Research or to apply for trial access, go to: Copyright The 451 Group 6