Managing the Mobile Edge:

The Unique Challenges and Requirements for Successful Management of Mobility Solutions

The power of mobility solutions in the enterprise is proven: companies all over the globe are deploying mobility solutions across the enterprise to achieve greater employee productivity, reduce costs and increase profitability. But an often overlooked critical element of a successful mobility solution is management. Without a comprehensive management solution, the benefits of mobility can be quickly eroded through the additional time and costs associated with deployment, day-to-day management and ongoing user support. There are many challenges involved in managing the many elements in an enterprise mobility solution - from mobile computers and scanners to integrated voice and data and other mobile devices, to wireless switches, access ports and access points. This white paper examines those challenges and assesses management system requirements that will reduce the complexity of managing as well as the total cost of ownership for your mobility solutions.

Overview

Wireless networking and Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) are fostering the next revolution in enterprise computing. Without the burden of the high cost of wiring devices, the number of network-enabled devices is exploding. Built-in Wi-Fi capabilities have become ubiquitous, found in everything from rugged mobile devices, scanners and Enterprise Digital Assistants (EDAs) to door locks. This next generation of wireless devices enables new classes of applications for mobile workers that deliver significant benefits to the enterprise, including productivity gains and cost savings.

However, these new applications also create major challenges for IT managers who are scrambling to deploy, manage and support their increasingly-mobile enterprise. And compliance with legislation such as Sarbanes-Oxley, HIPPA and FIPS, combined with VISA security requirements, further increases pressure on IT managers to strengthen their wireless security.

Managing enterprise mobility, where mobile users are constantly in motion and are sharing a common wireless network infrastructure, requires an entirely new approach that harnesses intelligence across mobile devices and the wireless infrastructure to deliver desired levels of security and end-user performance.

THE CHALLENGES OF MANAGING MOBILITY

While enterprise mobility enables companies to be more nimble, efficient and responsive to customers, it also poses a new set of challenges for IT departments:

The mobile edge of the enterprise is constantly in motion:

• People are in motion
• Devices are in motion
• Objects (inventory and assets) are in motion

Mobile employees have unique needs, often:

• Working with business critical applications
• In front of customers
• Measured on the clock
• Increasingly, non IT-savvy - and when mobile employees need help, they demand instant response from their IT help-desk

The mobile edge is fragmented and exploding:

• New types of devices
• Increasing number of mobile devices in the enterprise
• New types of network infrastructure elements
• An increasing number of network infrastructure elements

Securing and managing the mobile edge is a major challenge

Standardization of the mobile operating system (OS) and wireless infrastructure exposes the enterprise to new risks. Security, network performance and protecting of data and mobile assets have become a major challenge for IT operations.

Companies all over the globe are deploying mobility solutions across the enterprise to achieve greater employee productivity, reduce costs and increase profitability.

TOP MOBILITY CHALLENGES

The day-to-day time and costs associated with managing mobile solutions, from mobile devices to wireless infrastructure, is significant. According to a recent Gartner study, capital costs are only 25% of the total cost of ownership (TCO) of a mobile device . The remaining 75% is spent on deploying, managing and supporting these devices, as well as configuring the wireless network. Following are the major - and most costly - areas of management tasks associated with mobility solutions.

Costly roll-outs

Enterprises often spend up to $50 per mobile device just for initial deployment - and significantly more to configure and deploy their network infrastructure.

Expensive upgrades

To keep pace with the rapid technological changes, enterprises may be required to update mobile devices as often as two to three times each year. Often very costly, these updates usually require users to ship their devices to a central IT location, where they are physically configured, and then shipped back to the end-user at the remote location.

Hard-to-detect wireless network faults

After initial deployment of mobile devices and the wireless network infrastructure, IT managers are left with a limited set of tools for ongoing management. Wireless network faults and gaps in radio frequency (RF) coverage are hard to detect and correct - and can result in significant productivity loss.

Inadequate asset tracking and utilization

In the mobile environment, it is very difficult to accurately track and inventory assets. Enterprises seldom have an accurate view of mobile assets, resulting in less than optimal asset utilization.

Lost or stolen device costs

Mobile devices by their nature are more prone to loss and theft. In addition to the cost of the device, critical data stored on these devices can seriously jeopardize enterprise security. According to Gartner, the security costs associated with each lost mobile device, per incidence, averages $2,500 - a cost that could be eliminated with the ability to remotely locate and lock down any device on demand.

Security risks

In addition to lost devices, enterprises need to pay special attention to securing their wireless infrastructure. Many enterprises today are using WEP to secure their wireless infrastructure. However, intruders can easily circumvent WEP in a matter of hours, using simple off-the-shelf tools. In recognition of this issue, the industry is moving to more secure wireless networking standards, such as WPA and WPA2. Sarbanes-Oxley and VISA requirements are accelerating the adoption of these new standards. However, most legacy devices, which are based on DOS or proprietary operating systems, do not support WPA. Given the high cost of replacing devices, enterprises need the tools to quickly and easily define and rollout security policies that minimize risks in an environment that includes devices that support different security standards.

High support costs

Mobile device problems are hard to diagnose remotely. An internal Symbol study indicates that 25% of all devices shipped back to the manufacturer for service have no hardware faults and are categorized as "no-fault shipments." Given the proper tools, enterprises can significantly lower their help desk and "no-fault shipment" costs, while simultaneously minimizing end-user downtime - and the associated costs and impact on the day-to-day business.

Sub-optimal battery life

Outside of mobile devices, batteries constitute the single largest capital expenditure when deploying mobile applications. Battery life can be reduced by hardware problems, such as defective radios, improper device usage or battery quality. With proper analytics, enterprises can identify and correct problems that impact battery life, further reducing the total cost of ownership (TCO) for a mobility solution.

Challenges of managing converged devices

Many enterprises are reducing the costs associated with mobility with integrated voice and data devices.

Enterprises are reducing costs by deploying integrated voice and data devices that work seamlessly within both the wireless LAN and WAN. The need for employees to carry a voice device in addition to a data device is eliminated - along with the associated capital and operating expenses. However, voice applications have higher quality of service (QoS) needs and WAN bandwidth is expensive. To truly minimize the TCO for mobility, enterprises need tools that can maintain voice quality as well as minimize WAN usage.

LIMITATIONS OF CURRENT APPROACHES

While there are solutions offered today for management of mobility solutions, they are often not designed to address the specific needs of mobile devices and users, or mobile network infrastructure, and many are focused on a specific aspect of management (point solutions). While these point solutions may address a specific aspect of a mobility solution (such as managing the wireless network), they are not comprehensive in nature, and require other solutions for the remaining elements (such as the mobile devices or security). The results are either the deployment of a single solution that is not 'mobile-specific', or multiple management solutions that increase complexity and cost.

Typical enterprise management solutions do not address unique mobile needs

Traditional enterprise management tools are designed for the tethered world, and are excellent in managing the fixed computing infrastructure found within the enterprise, as well as portable computers, such as laptops. However, enterprises have found that these solutions do not meet the management needs for the growing number of diverse types of mobile devices. These devices require a management solution that:

• Works across a number of different mobile operating systems
• Has a very small footprint for resource constrained environments
• Has little impact on battery life
• Consumes limited amounts of precious WLAN/WWAN bandwidth

Also, traditional enterprise management solutions do not address the unique challenges mobility poses, such as the need to monitor and manage battery life and the ability to lock down a lost or stolen mobile device.

Point mobile management solutions solve only part of the problem

Recognizing the need, some vendors have developed mobile device provisioning and management solutions. These solutions address only part of the problem, which include:

• Provisioning and managing the mobile devices
• Managing the wireless networks
• Securing the wireless infrastructure

However, most mobile management solutions today lack both the breadth and extensibility required for managing the entire mobile edge and scaling to meet the needs of tomorrow. They rarely take a unified approach towards managing the mobile devices and the network infrastructure. Nor do they adequately address unique challenges encountered in using mobile devices over wireless LAN and WAN infrastructures, including:

• Battery management
• Provisioning of security policies
• Detecting and correcting gaps in wireless RF (Radio Frequency) coverage
• Guaranteeing voice quality

As a result, IT professionals are left with the unenviable task of putting together a number of proprietary solutions to solve their problems. With these point solutions, enterprises are unable to realize the true potential of their mobile assets, as management costs erode the productivity gains, cost savings and profitability increases that mobility delivers.

THE NEED FOR A COMPREHENSIVE MOBILITY MANAGEMENT SOLUTION

To support solutions for mobile workers, who are often in mission critical roles in front of customers, enterprises need a comprehensive mobility management solution that:

• Works out of the box and is easy to use
• Spans network infrastructure and mobile devices
• Provides the capability to deploy, manage and support the entire mobility domain
• Supports central provisioning of policies that improve application performance
• Offers maximum flexibility, scalability and investment protection through support for a wide range of mobile devices, complete with the extensibility to support new classes of devices
• Integrates with existing Enterprise Managers such as IBM Tivoli, Hewlett Packard OpenView and Computer Associates Unicenter

Mobile applications need intelligence from the mobile infrastructure

Mobile applications rely on robust Radio Frequency (RF) coverage, and the ability of the infrastructure to provide location information. They also rely on the ability of the infrastructure to dynamically tune itself to support QoS policies, based on who the users are, where they are located at any moment, and the type of application they are using. For example, a nurse in an emergency ward making a voice call needs higher priority than an X-ray being transmitted on the same wireless network. In order for voice, messaging and data applications to function at peak performance, the management system must provide endto- end system level information to the application.

SYMBOL'S MANAGEMENT SERVICES PLATFORM (MSP)

The industry's first end-to-end mobility management solution

For over 30 years, Symbol has been a leader in Enterprise Mobility, Symbol helps some of the world's largest companies to capture, move and manage information every day to achieve business advantage - increased productivity, reduced costs and increased profitability. A breadth and depth of understanding of mobility needs gained through years of experience was leveraged to develop Mobility Services Platform (MSP), the industry's first comprehensive end-to-end solution for managing the entire mobile edge. Symbol is the only industry vendor to provide a complete enterprise mobility platform, including all major elements of a mobility solution: mobile devices, wireless network infrastructure, and a comprehensive management platform for mobile devices as well as the WLAN. MSP's management capabilities dramatically simplify deployment, day-to-day management and end-user support. In addition, MSP includes end-to-end mobility features that allow applications to achieve peak performance on Symbol hardware.

MSP CAPABILITIES

BUSINESS BENEFITS

Cost effectively deploy new devices

MSP allows enterprises to eliminate an entire step in deploying mobile devices. With MSP, enterprises can have the devices shipped directly from the supplier to their remote locations. End users are up and running right out of the box by simply scanning a set of bar codes to automatically configure the device. MSP takes care of the rest - from configuring the device and network communications to downloading and installing the right set of applications, and provisioning the right security settings. The need for the IT department to spend time manually configuring each device is completely eliminated - along with the associated costs.

Strengthen mobile and wireless infrastructure security

MSP allows the central provisioning of security across the entire mobile and wireless infrastructure. Security managers can easily define virtual LANS (VLANs) and enforce different levels of security for each based on the device capabilities and the sensitivity of the data. Enterprises can not only configure WEP and WPA security across their mobile devices and infrastructure with just a few clicks, but can also rotate WEP keys easily to enhance security on legacy devices.

End-to-end visibility from a single point of control

MSP allows enterprises to seamlessly manage all their mobile assets - mobile devices and wireless infrastructure - from a central console. With MSP, enterprises can easily distribute operating system, firmware and application updates remotely to all supported devices and network infrastructure elements with minimum disruption to their mobile operations.

Lower asset tracking and management costs

MSP automatically discovers mobile assets, tracks their movement across the enterprise and collects performance data in real-time. Enterprises can easily add user-friendly names such as asset tags and serial numbers for asset tracking. When a device is reported lost, enterprises can trace the last location to either recover the device or identify theft patterns.

Reduce support costs

MSP automatically collects device configuration profiles and performance data from all supported mobile assets in the enterprise. Support personnel can easily browse a rich set of monitoring data and analyze trends to identify configuration deviations or detect application level problems. To reduce resolution time, support personnel can remotely takeover control of the device to recreate end-user problems.

Increase availability and user productivity

MSP keeps your mobile devices and wireless network functioning at peak performance through real-time monitoring and remote control, alerts, and the ability to seamlessly and remotely perform updates. The result is an increase in uptime that ensures minimal disruption in business operations, and maximum user productivity.

Improve mobile application performance

MSP's mobility features provide the tools to maximize application performance. These features, implemented as software components, intelligently monitor interactions between the mobile devices and the network infrastructure to identify problems such as gaps in RF coverage. Mobility features also adjust the policies across access points, wireless switches and mobile devices to enforce security as well as ensure performance standards, for example, delivering priority to critical communications, such as voice.

CONCLUSION

Efficient and cost-effective end-to-end management of mobility solutions is critical to achieving maximum business benefit. Without a comprehensive management solution, the time and cost associated with managing mobile devices and wireless infrastructure can quickly erode the benefits from the mobility solution, such as productivity gains and cost-savings.

Symbol offers a total integrated mobility solution, including mobile devices to capture data at the mobile edge, wireless network infrastructure to move the data in real time to the point of most impact, and a complete mobility management solution to manage the entire mobility solution, from mobile devices to wireless network. With MSP, Symbol's management solution, enterprises enjoy accelerated deployment, end-to-end visibility, expedited problem detection and resolution, central provisioning of security for better network and data protection, and peak application performance. Through the power of MSP, enterprises reap the benefits of mobility, while reducing the complexity and total cost of ownership for their mobility solution.

Contact Us

To request more information on how Mobility Services Platform from Symbol Technologies can help you manage your mobile enterprise, please visit www.symbol.com/msp

About Symbol Technologies

Symbol Technologies, Inc., The Enterprise Mobility Company™, is a recognized worldwide leader in enterprise mobility, delivering products and solutions that capture, move and manage information in real time to and from the point of business activity. Symbol enterprise mobility solutions integrate advanced data capture products, radio frequency identification technology, mobile computing platforms, wireless infrastructure, mobility software and world-class services programs. Symbol enterprise mobility products and solutions are proven to increase workforce productivity, reduce operating costs, drive operational efficiencies and realize competitive advantages for the world's leading companies.