Securing productivity, collaboration and enterprise data is critically important as organizations digitally transform. Microsoft is committed to delivering a new approach to secure this transition, as evidenced with the announcement of their new Secure Productive Enterprise offering.

 

Microsoft Enterprise Mobility Suite (EMS) provides an identity-driven security solution that offers a holistic approach to the security challenges in this mobile-first, cloud-first era. Microsoft technologies not only help you protect your organization but also identify breaches before they cause damage.

 

 

 

Protect at the “front door”

 

A solution starts with identity protection capabilities to secure access at the “front door” of your company’s apps and data. Azure Active Directory Identity Protection leverages billions of signals to provide risk-based conditional access to your applications and critical company data, including the option of multi-factor authentication. Microsoft also helps you manage and protect privileged accounts with Azure Active Directory Privileged Identity Management so you can discover, restrict and monitor privileged identities and their access to resources.

 

 

Protect your data from user mistakes

 

Microsoft provides deep visibility into user and data activity, so you can protect your company when users make poor choices as they work with critical company data. Microsoft Cloud App Security provides visibility and controls for cloud apps, including popular SaaS apps like Box, Salesforce, ServiceNow, and, of course, Office 365. With the new Azure Information Protection, Microsoft brings together classification and labeling with persistent data protection to enable secure file sharing, internally and externally. Finally, Microsoft Intune Mobile App Management (MAM) helps you prevent data loss on mobile devices, with the unique ability to manage the Office mobile apps without requiring device enrollment.

 

 

Detect attacks before they cause damage

 

As more organizations move to an assume breach posture, Microsoft EMS identifies attackers in your organization using innovative behavioral analytics and anomaly detection technologies―on-premises with Microsoft Advanced Threat Analytics and in the cloud with Azure Active Directory and Cloud App Security. Threat intelligence is enhanced with the Microsoft Intelligent Security Graph driven by vast datasets and machine learning in the cloud.

 

In just two years, EMS has grown to lead the market with over 27,000 enterprise customers and more than 1/3 of the Fortune 500 now onboard. Contact Zunesis to find out how your organization can benefit from Microsoft Azure and Microsoft Enterprise Mobility + Security (EMS).

 

 

Mobility Challenge

As Mobility trends continue to transform the way we communicate, collaborate, and access information, enterprises are taking a wireless-first approach to connectivity. They need mobile networking solutions that allow enterprises to easily accommodate smartphones, tablets, and other personal devices on internal networks, while keeping them safe with the most robust security features available.

 

While “bring your own device” is great for the user, CIOs are faced with the challenge of transitioning legacy systems to the wireless edge while providing enterprise-class security and an optimized mobile application experience.

 

At the same time, the industry is about to go through the next major wave of wireless protocol roll-out with 802.11ac, ushering in another significant change in wireless performance. Over the next 3-5 years, we believe this wave will drive a massive network refresh not just to customers’ wireless access points, but to their campus switches as well.

Answering the Need

 

All of this creates a tremendous opportunity in the industry – and that’s where HPE comes in. About a year ago, HPE acquired Aruba Networks, a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for mobile enterprise. Aruba designs and delivers best-of-breed mobility solutions and WLAN products and employs a software approach that extends mobility intelligence across wired and wireless networks all the way to users through devices and apps.

 

Combining Aruba and HPE will create a leader in enterprise mobility, positioning HPE to enable and accelerate customers’ transition to a converged campus network. The two companies are highly complementary – Aruba brings best-of-breed mobility software and WLAN hardware, and HPE has a leading networking portfolio. This potent combination will enable enterprises to easily, quickly, and securely deploy end-to-end mobile solutions, including the latest multi-gigabit wireless technology, across their campus. Together, HPE and Aruba will offer a unified solution with value-added software features, including policy management, security, and orchestration.

 

According to Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager – Hewlett Packard Enterprise Group, “Ultimately, with Aruba’s leading wireless LAN technology and differentiated software solutions, coupled with HPE’s robust switching portfolio, HPE Networking will have market leadership in the $18 billion and growing campus networking market. HPE will be an innovative, agile vendor ideally positioned to solve customers’ toughest challenges in mobility, security and networking.”

 

 

 

 

Mobility Challenge

As Mobility trends continue to transform the way we communicate, collaborate, and access information, enterprises are taking a wireless-first approach to connectivity. They need mobile networking solutions that allow enterprises to easily accommodate smartphones, tablets, and other personal devices on internal networks, while keeping them safe with the most robust security features available.
 
While “bring your own device” is great for the user, CIOs are faced with the challenge of transitioning legacy systems to the wireless edge while providing enterprise-class security and an optimized mobile application experience.
 
At the same time, the industry is about to go through the next major wave of wireless protocol roll-out with 802.11ac, ushering in another significant change in wireless performance. Over the next 3-5 years, we believe this wave will drive a massive network refresh not just to customers’ wireless access points, but to their campus switches as well.

Answering the Need

 
All of this creates a tremendous opportunity in the industry – and that’s where HPE comes in. About a year ago, HPE acquired Aruba Networks, a leading provider of next-generation network access solutions for mobile enterprise. Aruba designs and delivers best-of-breed mobility solutions and WLAN products and employs a software approach that extends mobility intelligence across wired and wireless networks all the way to users through devices and apps.
 
Combining Aruba and HPE will create a leader in enterprise mobility, positioning HPE to enable and accelerate customers’ transition to a converged campus network. The two companies are highly complementary – Aruba brings best-of-breed mobility software and WLAN hardware, and HPE has a leading networking portfolio. This potent combination will enable enterprises to easily, quickly, and securely deploy end-to-end mobile solutions, including the latest multi-gigabit wireless technology, across their campus. Together, HPE and Aruba will offer a unified solution with value-added software features, including policy management, security, and orchestration.
 
According to Antonio Neri, Executive Vice President and General Manager – Hewlett Packard Enterprise Group, “Ultimately, with Aruba’s leading wireless LAN technology and differentiated software solutions, coupled with HPE’s robust switching portfolio, HPE Networking will have market leadership in the $18 billion and growing campus networking market. HPE will be an innovative, agile vendor ideally positioned to solve customers’ toughest challenges in mobility, security and networking.”
 
 
 
 

I talked about the critical importance of turning the 70/30 rule on its head in my last post, that the winners in your competitive set are the ones who are able to spend less time, money, and human resources maintaining their current IT environment and more of their resources using IT to create a competitive advantage. Companies that use IT to help out-invent, out-innovate, and be more customer-focused than their competitors will find themselves top of mind and top of heart for their customers.
One of the areas that is gathering great momentum in the IT industry is mobility. More and more businesses are realizing the benefits of employees and customers being able to access their own information from any device and from anywhere.
There are many benefits to mobility that are influencing this trend:

• Portability: A number of recent studies point to the fact that extending access to critical work applications to all employees leads to greater employee satisfaction and a general sense of enablement and empowerment.
• Availability: The ability to access content from anywhere leads to improved productivity and efficiency. It also leads to much greater responsiveness. From a revenue perspective, opportunities for customers to buy at any hour from any device can be a game changer for many businesses. On more than one occasion, access to my Kindle account on those 3AM over-caffeinated nights has certainly been good news for any Amazon stock holder.
• Power Savings: While the momentum is building for the truly mobile workforce, initial estimates point to a potential for up to 44% power savings through virtualization and BYOD initiatives
• Personal Ownership of Devices: Can be a real difference maker for businesses leading to reduced costs, higher adoption, and better employee engagement/higher employee compliance.
• Employee Satisfaction/Retention: Flexibility to work when and where they choose is fast becoming a part of the overall compensation package for many workers. Multiple studies point to a significant number of younger workers considering flexible work locations and schedules, social media access, and ability to use their own devices being as critical in an overall compensation package as is pay.
• 

As with most things in life, there is a flip side. Along with the upsides of mobility, there comes a number of crucial challenges:

• Security
  • At the same time that employees and consumers are asking for easier, quicker access to their work applications and account information, high profile security breaches point out how sophisticated hackers have become at taking advantage of even the tiniest cracks in security.
• Performance
  • For most employees and customers, the only thing worse than not having access to applications and accounts is having access hampered by a poorly performing application.
• Cost Effectiveness
  • • Ensuring secure data access with multiple devices from multiple locations at all hours of the day (and night) introduces challenges. How do you create a secure, high-performing environment that doesn’t erode both the cost savings associated with employees and customers owning their own devices and the revenue opportunities of allowing customers to interact with you anytime they choose?

   

 Choosing the right partner
How can you dial in on just the right mix of access, security, and cost effectiveness? The answer is working with a partner that can bring to the table the right mix of products, design expertise, and experience. Zunesis is a partner that can work with you to build a solution that spans virtualization, security, server, storage, and networking capabilities. Allow us to work with you on a design that can deliver a high-performing, secure IT environment that cost-effectively provides all the benefits of mobility to your employees and customers. Make the call today, and see the difference that empowered employees and enthusiastic customers can make for you.