Successful Mobile Solutions are often praised for their simplicity and intuitiveness, while this is very true this part of the solution is often one component of the entire ecosystem. Mobile Solutions are very much like icebergs where the Presentation Layer (Often referred to as the App) is the tip of the Iceberg. Although this analogy has been overused over the years, I find it to be a very accurate representation of a Comprehensive Mobile Solution. Under the surface of the successful App or Series of Apps, we often find well thought out Application Distribution and Delivery, Service & Integration, as well as Structured Data and Infrastructure Layers. All these components serve to make up a great Mobile Solution. Picture again the Iceberg, and I am sure you will imagine the water around it, that is the Security Layer, something I have been covering in my most recent posts.
Although I can go into great detail about any one layer mentioned above, it is the security layer that I have emphasized most of my posts on over the last few weeks and the one I want to close out on today. In order to have a great solution, we need to identify the right combination of people, processes, and technology, and I realized that most of my posts speak to the process and people aspect of security and omit the technology aspect.
One of the reasons for omitting technology is because there are several great solutions in the market place and narrowing down my security recommendations to just a few does not do the marketplace justice. Picture Mobile Security to be like the home page of your phone; if your phone is like mine no two apps are built by the same company (Unless you count the text and phone app), the reason for this is because we look for best in class solutions that can help us solve our unique needs. Similar to this is the Mobile Security Market Place. That being said, I do want to mention a few products, in no particular order, that Shockoe has had the opportunity to work with and deploy for several clients over the last few months.
One of the first security questions we normally get is “How can we protect the data on an app deployed on an employee device”. While the answer to this is not simply a solution can be found in one of my previous posts (SDK vs Wrapping). Some of the solutions we have worked with include Mocana, Air-Watch, Good, and Citrix.
Mocana is a unique application in that it is a leading Mobile App Protection Platform; this company is strictly focused on providing a simple yet secure solution to wrap Enterprise Mobile Apps without the Big Enterprise Systems. Although one of the primary focuses for Mocana is Secure App wrapping, it does this job second to none and as such is a strong competitor in the marketplace. One of the benefits to this company is its customer service, working with Mocana, Shockoe was able to develop an Appcelerator Titanium Module that can be used with all Titanium Apps.
Air-Watch is one of the most well know Enterprise Mobility Management suites in the marketplace. Although acquired by VMware in 2014, this acquisition only served to strengthen its foothold on the market. Air-watch continues to innovate like no other company in the market and offers a comprehensive suite of Mobility Management products, including the option to use an SDK or Wrapper. Outside of the level of security offered by the products, one of the things that interested us the most in our dealings with Air-Watch was the console; the step-by-step approach helps IT administrators become productive with the tools extremely quick. Again, the level of service provided by this company is always helpful when the security situations cannot be resolved. We find that Air-Watch has been a great fit for those companies looking for a comprehensive EMM solution on multiple platforms.
Last, and certainly not least is Good Work, a recent introduction by Good Technology in an effort to replace Good for Enterprise. The Good Platform has been around for a very long time and is great for organizations that have strict policies on devices and/or are working on a BYOD policy. Be on the lookout for an announcement from Shockoe for a new Good Module that can be used with cross-platform solutions such as Appcelerator.
While these three solutions only represent a small subset of Mobile Security Technology Vendors, they are ones we have worked with closely over the last few months. The key to selecting the best suite of solutions comes down to understanding your businesses short and long term Mobile needs.
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