FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE An Introductory Buyer s Guide
Table of Contents Introduction.... 2 Why Digital Workspace?... 4 An Unmatched Identity-Based Contextual Experience.... 6 A Strategy for Unified Endpoint Management and Security.... 6 Delivering Windows as a Service with Virtual Desktops and Apps.... 7 Enterprise-Ready Mobile Collaboration Applications... 8 Wrap-Up... 8 Buying Criteria Checklist.... 9 FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE 1
Introduction Businesses of all sizes are creating a digital workspace, delivering anytime, anywhere access to all applications, services, and resources across all devices desktops, tablets, and smartphones. With a digital workspace, people can use any desktop or device BYO or corporate-owned at any time while IT administrators safely automate application distribution and updates on the fly. Enterprises that deploy the digital workspace can easily embrace heterogeneity because identity access and personalization transcends every application, across every device. This paper provides guidance for creating the most effective virtual workspace solution to empower your workforce. Four considerations that directly impact the success of your digital workspace strategy are discussed in detail. Recommendations for the most critical specifications are given to help you define an effective digital workspace strategy for your enterprise. 2 FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE
To create the most effective virtual workspace solution to empower your workforce, consider: 1 An Unmatched Identity-Based Contextual Experience 2 A Strategy for Unified Endpoint Management and Security 3 Delivering Windows as a Service with Virtual Desktops and Apps 4 Enterprise-Ready Mobile Collaboration Applications FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE 3
Why Digital Workspace? The digital workspace is the defining model for end-user computing in the mobile-cloud era. Organizations delivering a digital workspace are enabling users to gain the greatest benefit from a portfolio of devices and applications that are increasingly diverse and heterogeneous. The rapid adoption of new modern apps (SaaS and mobile) coupled with the proliferation of mobile devices has introduced new challenges in the work environment. Organizations are facing a critical inflection point to either ignore these trends at the peril of unintended security breaches or to embrace a new way of working and leveraging a new management framework. The digital workspace redefines the way IT delivers applications and services to users across all devices and operating systems. It also fundamentally changes how users do their jobs in a way that is consumer-simple, enterprise-secure, and transparent to the user. To protect the most sensitive information, the digital workspace combines identity and device management, enforcing access decisions based on a range of conditions such as strength of authentication, network, location, and device compliance. Shifting from a focus on endpoint management to a focus on application management, IT teams gain a uniform management experience for their entire fleet of desktops including those upgraded to Windows 10 as well as BYO devices. Rapid business shifts cannot be supported by silos. Yet many systems are currently designed to operate within four primary solitary groups: Identity, Mobile, Desktop, and Windows Apps. As long as these groups continue to run as silos, there cannot be a strategic platform for delivering all applications in the consistent manner needed to meet digital transformation business demands. 4 FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE
Driving the Digital Workspace Apps and Identity Consumer Simple Desktop Mobile Enterprise Secure Management and Security FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE 5
Buying Criterion #1 An Unmatched Identity-Based Contextual Experience Experience needs to be consistent across devices, yet it needs to be contextual based on the device and the location or networks from which users access the applications. Identity-based contextual experience provides self-service access based on users identity and the context in which they re trying to use information to give them access to every possible application they need and a platform that can deliver any app. The most successful digital workspace will integrate information architecture, bringing together a simple experience for end users driven by individual identity and context at each point in time when they access an application. Contextual experience means that the user receives an optimized view and information based on the type of device being used. A seamless experience means that they access the same information across devices a big screen, like a laptop or desktop, or a smaller screen, like their tablet or mobile device. Buying Criterion #2 A Strategy for Unified Endpoint Management and Security As you think about endpoint strategy, you need to consider management and security thinking about desktop and mobile in a unified fashion. Endpoint management and security is now fundamentally transformed and blended so you can do it in a much simpler way across your desktop and mobile real estate. Management and security were previously viewed as two separate things; but in a world where security is critical, they are merging. Management has traditionally been update and image management, application distribution, and monitoring. That was how software was configured, based on the setup scenario that every possible desktop was connected to a single secured network. As devices started connecting to the Internet, security became an increasing concern antivirus, encryption, access control, document protection, writes management, policy access. Lines drawn between management and security were clear. This is not the case with mobile device management. Mobile devices can connect to a single cloud-based control point, which have become increasingly intelligent and effective. Now, technology is no longer simply pushing configurations onto the devices or monitoring the devices. Instead, it is used for things like analytics, device configuration, or to provide access or even authentication policies. 6 FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE
Buying Criterion #3 Delivering Windows as a Service with Virtual Desktops and Apps Traditional desktop management over the past 15 years involved imaging the desktop environment with applications, turning them into a single image, and deploying that image on a physical desktop or laptop for the user. Using this method meant setting up massive back-end infrastructure, spending unreasonable amounts of time on tasks using legacy tools, and lots of app failures and downtime. Updating applications was even more cumbersome and providing users with a consistent experience was unheard of. But times have changed. Virtual desktops and apps that allow Windows to be delivered as a service ensure that IT can now easily support end users, maximize productivity, and keep costs under control. What s more, organizations now have the flexibility and freedom to take advantage of desktop and applications on-premises, as a cloud service, or via a hybrid deployment model. Organizations can simply choose the model that best meets their budgets and use cases. When it comes to desktop and application virtualization, ensuring that applications are seamlessly delivered to end users is incredibly important. When done well, unified application and user management can improve employee productivity and streamline day-to-day mangement. A simplified application lifecycle management approach can relieve IT of unnecessary steps in the app delivery, update, and retirement process. Additionally, providing contextual profile and policy management alongside application management ensures that end users can have a consistently great experience across a range of devices and locations. And proactive application and desktop monitoring can further reduce support costs and improve user experience. FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE 7
Buying Criterion #4 Enterprise-Ready Mobile Collaboration Applications We work with applications, and we work with people. We need to be able to have key applications that enable collaboration, especially when we are using mobile devices. Ultimately, two heads are better than one. There are two things critical to any worker: information and people. Information and content is accessed using the information architecture just discussed. People and collaboration are critical for business success. And a key set of mobile applications that enables that next generation of collaboration with enterprise-great security is what brings them together. The rapid adoption of mobile is furthering enabling both rapid access to information and content collaboration. Consider the power of mobile applications. Companies are building products, delivering services, and driving change in a more agile way, and much of their work involves people working globally across a range of applications sending information from mail to some kind of a social system, then using systems like Jira or GitHub to quickly collaborate. The power of mobile collaboration comes full circle when users have a simple way to share documents and receive the right degree of notifications on mobile devices. Wrap-Up Enterprises today are experiencing a digital transformation. Regardless of the industry association be it healthcare, government, food and agriculture, or manufacturing businesses are revitalizing themselves through technology to make processes more efficient. This means a significant amount of change IT needs to support at a rapid-fire pace. The need to enable the digital workspace environment is driving IT departments to think out of the box and adopt new ways of doing work. Addressing the requirement for users to simply and securely work on any app on any device is driving this evolution. Unfortunately, developing a digital workspace that is both consumer-simple and enterprise-secure can be challenging, but, if you have gotten this far, you are off to a great start. 8 FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE
Buying Criteria Checklist The following checklist is based on the digital workspace buying criteria considerations covered in this paper. When creating a robust digital workspace, be sure to factor in your needs for most (if not all) of the following requirements for your solution. UNIFIED APPLICATION CATALOG AND LAUNCHER Customizable Workspace Web Portal (Public / SaaS, Internal Web, Native Mobile / App / VMware ThinApp ) Native Workspace App (ios, Android, Windows 10) Web/SaaS/Public Mobile / Native Mobile Apps App Store Integration (Google / Apple / Microsoft) IDENTITY AND ACCESS MANAGEMENT Identity Federation (SSO) with AD Integration SAML Identity Provider and Provisioning Framework Multi-Factor Authentication Supported Conditional Access (User, Device Type, Network, Authentication Strength, Device Compliance, Device Location) App Reporting and Analytics Passcode Management One-Touch Single Sign-On (SSO) PRODUCTIVITY AND COLLABORATION APPS Email, Calendar, Contacts Content Locker Chat UNIFIED APPLICATION AND DEVICE MANAGEMENT Device Organization / Group Management Device Configurations Remote Wipe Mobile App Wrapping and SDK Support DEVICE COMPLIANCE AND ENFORCEMENT Jailbreak / Root Protection Application Whitelist / Blacklist GPS and Geofencing OS Version Control Compliance Escalation Partial Wipe Full Wipe DATA LOSS PREVENTION AND VPN Application Containerization Controls Open In Controls Email Attachment Management Tunnel and Secure Browser FOUR KEY REQUIREMENTS FOR BUILDING A DIGITAL WORKSPACE 9
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