Does your organization have a significant cache of BlackBerry devices? If so, you probably use BlackBerry Enterprise Service to manage the devices, but you’ve learned that BES management capabilities are rather limited. Fiberlink Communications now has a visibility service for BlackBerry handhelds that provides much more meaningful and actionable insight than you can get through BES.
Several weeks ago, I brought you information about best practices for managing smartphones and advanced best practices for managing smartphones. The advice was compiled by technology experts at Fiberlink Communications, a provider of Mobility as a Service (MaaS) solutions.
This week I’d like to tell you about a new solution from Fiberlink that can give you much deeper insight to your company’s use of BlackBerry handheld devices than you can currently get from your BlackBerry Enterprise Server (BES). The MaaS360 Visibility Service for Handhelds brings BlackBerry hardware and software inventory into the MaaS360 Management Center to provide a single console to manage and report on your mobile devices, including PCs, Macs, and now BlackBerry handhelds. (Additional smartphone platforms will be added in time.)
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The MaaS360 Visibility Service is a subscription service hosted in the cloud. Subscribers use the MaaS360 Management Center console to view detailed and summary level reports about the distributed and mobile devices under management, including laptops and PCs. The types of reports include:
* Hardware and software inventory — The hardware inventory information includes data about processors, memory, and disks and other storage devices. The software inventory information includes the operating system release, and the names and release levels of all system and application software.
* Patch status — You can readily see detailed information about missing Microsoft OS patches on laptops and PCs. The report can identify which device is missing which patch so you can address vulnerabilities before they are exploited.
* Personal firewall — This report shows which personal firewalls are installed and running (or stopped) on each device.
* Antivirus — See which antivirus packages and releases are installed, as well as whether the antivirus application is currently running or not.
* Data encryption — View this report to see what data encryption software is installed on laptops and PCs, by vendor, release and installation date.
The MaaS360 Visibility for Handhelds service brings BlackBerry information into this same central console. The main advantage is that people in your organization who are not BES administrators (such as the CIO, the vice president of human resources, the finance director, department heads, etc.) can use the Web-based dashboard and reports to understand how the BlackBerry devices are being used and how they are configured (i.e., what applications are on them). After all, the management and security of handhelds has gotten broader than just one person; other people need to have the insight, too.
For example, suppose an employee is terminated from your company. The head of HR would be able to view a report to determine if that employee’s personally-owned BlackBerry is still connected to the corporate infrastructure. In large enterprises, people leave the company every day, and the IT department doesn’t always know when to de-provision a service — especially if a device that isn’t company-owned is used to access that service.
This service also provides broad visibility and reporting for compliance and risk efforts. It’s possible to create profiles for applications as well as policies that can be deployed to entire classes of devices. And while BES tends to provide only point-in-time status about the BlackBerry devices, MaaS360 provides trending information that is more useful in managing the devices.
Anthony Do, a systems administrator at Rae Systems, uses MaaS360 Visibility for Handhelds to help support the BlackBerry devices used within his company. According to Do, BlackBerry handhelds are standard corporate issue for the worldwide sales workforce. In addition, many employees provide their own equipment, and therefore the company doesn’t control the equipment. Nevertheless, Do has to provide support when a worker has a problem with his device, which happens often as employees travel abroad.
Do says the MaaS360 service allows him to see what model device a person is using; the version of the OS/firmware; what applications are installed on the device; and how much space is available on the device. This information gives insight that helps Do troubleshoot problems, especially for people outside the United States. In addition, the information is helpful in choosing a carrier service as people travel among countries.
Fiberlink cites other use cases for MaaS360 Visibility for Handhelds:
* Monitor which devices are no longer being used so they can be redistributed or retired from service; stop paying for devices that aren’t in service.
* Provide the help desk with key support information that will help troubleshoot and resolve problems; consultants don’t need direct access to the BES administration console to obtain the information.
* Meet compliance requirements by quickly identifying which devices are not on the correct corporate security policies.
* Find out what software and applications users are installing which may become a security risk.
To learn more about this service and to sign up for a free trial, see here.
