If I as an organization have tens hundreds thousands of mobile devices under my control I can use something
known as mobile device management.
Every mobile operating system has built into its core the ability to listen to a single control source
to be able to do just about anything you want to a mobile device.
So for example I can define what applications you can install.
I can even decide what kind of backgrounds you have and what type of wallpapers you use and I can even
set it up so that you can't take pictures unless I want you to.
Now if this sounds a little bit Big Brother it is.
But there's a wonderful granularity to mobile device management.
Now as you can imagine there are thousands of things we can cover but for the exam there's a very specific
list.
And I would just want to run through these really quick.
First is content management.
Now that certainly are applications but it goes a lot deeper than that.
For example our applications need databases.
Our nurses are going to need databases that are up to date for the different types of patients on the
floor.
Our sales people are going to have to have databases that showed the current sales that are taking place
for the customer and he's right in front of right now.
Also things like documents if I've got an engineer out in the field and he's referencing some type of
documentation I want to make sure that my content management keeps all of this up to date.
Next is geo location.
Pretty common stuff letting us know where somebody is at this very moment.
But as a corollary to that is geo fencing jeel fencing is geo location but with a trigger the moment
that truck comes into the yard I want the loader guys to know that it's coming and they need to be ready
for it.
Also push notification services it's very convenient for us to have our applications put push notifications
up on the screen but we don't want a casual push notification to come up when our charge nurse is working
on a critical patient.
Next our passwords and pins.
Not only do we require passwords and pins but more importantly if someone forgets one or if there's
an issue we have the ability from remote management to be able to take care of those types of problems.
On top of that are biometrics fingerprint facial recognition even voice are common on most mobile devices
these days.
What's interesting is not only can we use this to lock or unlock a device but we can actually configure
applications today.
You may be on the device but if you want to use a particular application you're going to have to use
one of these biometrics just to get to that next our screen locks.
We want to make sure that people have their screens locked when they're not in use.
And these are one things that mobile device management can easily enforce.
And last unfortunately we do have users who lose devices and the convenience of a remote wipe from a
central location is a powerful MTM tool.
Now there's a lot of situations in mobile device management where we're really kind of transcending
the device itself and instead we're concentrating on the applications on this device.
Now this is particularly true when we get into the b y O.D. kind of scenario because what we're talking
about now is that we have a person's personal device.
But we're going to apply applications to this device.
So we have to be sensitive to the fact that it's their device and they need access to their stuff.
Yet on the same token we need to provide strong control and security for our stuff.
So let's go through different aspects of mobile application management first is application management.
Now I know just a moment ago I said that content management was a part of NDA.
But when we're talking about application management here we're talking about versioning updates patches
things that are specific to the application that you're managing.
Next is context aware authentication instead of just counting on things like passwords or fingerprints.
We can add context.
Where are they right now.
What operating system are they using what time of day are they trying to authenticate these context
aware authentication tools can be incredibly powerful.
Next is storage segmentation.
Now when I talk about storage segmentation I'm talking about dedicating a separate piece of the storage
of the mobile device just for our application keeping it totally separate from the user's personal stuff.
Another big one is full device encryption where we literally encrypt the entire storage of the mobile
device to make sure that if it falls in the wrong hands they're not going to get any information.
As to something interesting and we call this containerization Let's talk about that for a minute.
Containers are really really popular.
We see people for example who do web apps here total seminars.
We live in the world of doctor for our web app development.
However it's also great when it comes to mobile devices both iOS and Android.
We're great with containers and it's a super way if you have a particular application or more than that
an application with all its support deals and all the other documents and everything.
Well with one container you can do all kinds of amazing updates.
OK.
So in the end mam's sound great and I can just throw some pretty words up on the screen but you really
need to see it in action to see how this works.
Now there are literally hundreds of different companies that provide MDMA type solutions out there so
I chose one in particular that actually comes directly from Google.
Google does MTM through a very very powerful system in this particular case.
They provide a wonderful little demo and it's great for a course like this.
So let's take a look what's up on my screen.
So what I've got is an Indian solution.
This is a demo so it's not a complete product from Google so I want to go through and just give you
some idea of some of the management stuff we'd want to see.
First of all we'd have to decide on our users so here's me and one device and it's the Android I've
actually got sitting right in front of me right here so it is a managed device so we can also define
things like for example apps.
Now right now I have three apps that my users are going to use.
Now if you're looking at this you're going to go well what if I already have Chrome browser or what
if I already have Dropbox hang on a sec I'll show you it's really cool.
So what we can say is we can auto install.
So basically the moment this person logs in they're going to get these programs.
But I can even add more stuff for example if I want to I can add this painting program I'm going to
go ahead and prove that.
And what I've done is I've added this particular program I'm going to show you where this comes into
play in just a second.
Next we can apply some policies for example here I can disable screen capture in this case.
I've got it turned off so my individual computers can still go ahead and do screen captures disable
copy and paste.
What an interesting thing to disable as a policy.
You don't want people copying and pasting from some important application and putting it in their notepad.
I can require a screen lock with a pin if I want I can have runtime permissions basically when they
come up to run a particular app I could require them to do a username and password if I want.
I can even in this one little simple demo.
Force them to use a particular Wi-Fi configuration.
OK.
Now understand right now folks this is a demo tool so it is extremely limited but it's designed to show
you I think Google does a good job of giving you an idea of what MTM can really do.
Now the interesting part is over here on my screen.
So what I want you to look at and you'll see if there I have contacts and this is just my personal contacts.
And you can see it says Mike at play.
Now what I'm going to do right now is I'm going to go this new folder and you'll see it has a little
icon on there.
This is the work folder that's been put in through this management tool.
You can see I've got contacts here.
Now watch what happens when I click on this.
Now you see it says Mike at work.
So really what's happening is I have two completely separate sets of contacts here.
One for work and one for play The other interesting part is right up here.
So you'll see that I have installed programs I've got Dropbox chrome and the show pad which are the
three that were in there but I want to install that paint program.
So what I can do now is go into Google store.
However this is not the Google store that you and I know.
Notice it only has four applications for me to choose from.
So I could if I want to go ahead and install that one particular application.
The cool part to this little demo tool is that it really makes two of everything.
So if you have to have everything in many of these endian solutions what you'll see is that they take
your system and they segregate your storage so that some of the storage is for your stuff and some is
dedicated to the applications that you need to get your job done.
In fact not only does it segregate it but it will actually go through an encryption process to really
really lock that stuff down.
Mobile device management is absolutely amazing and it is becoming more and more accomplished and powerful
as the years progressed.
I think it will be interesting to see in the not too distant future what some of the amazing opportunities
can take place within the world of mobile device management.