Learn about the latest release of VMware Tunnel, formerly named AirWatch Tunnel, below.
Organizations today see an increasingly large number of their employees work remote and on the go. These employees often need access to corporate apps, data and systems whether they are at home, a hotel lobby, an airplane or any other place that supports Internet access. Providing end users’ work machines remote access to corporate resources is not a new challenge, and most IT departments will be quick to point out that this has been addressed for quite some time via VPN access.
So why should IT be concerned about this now?
Work Machines Are Mobile
The proliferation of smartphones and modern mobile-cloud operating systems pose new network and security challenges to IT admins:
- These devices move with the end user, thus necessitating a seamless access experience as users frequent in and out of their workspace. The experience today requires users to open the VPN client and manually connect to the network each time they move out of the corporate network.
- When users move, the data moves with them. VPN clients do not provide adaptive access controls at a device, app or user level. This increases the chances of corporate data leakage into personal apps and when the device is misplaced or stolen.
- Once authenticated to the VPN, the entire device has access to corporate resources. This means a potentially rogue app downloaded from a public app store gets a free pass to corporate resources, as well.
- With Windows 10, Microsoft has unified the desktop and mobile environments. The new mobile-cloud OS also advocates an EMM-based approach for managing the OS. These changes are forcing IT to adopt a consistent security and management approach across any device running the Windows OS.
What Is VMware Tunnel?
The VMware Tunnel solution allows VPN access on a per-app basis to corporate resources that are residing in a secure internal network. The native app tunneling solution was previously only available for iOS and Android platforms, and today we are pleased to announce the availability of the VMware Tunnel for Windows 10 beta program. Please reach out to your VMware technical contact for more information. The latest release reinforces our vision of ensuring multi-OS support and brings a key network security and data loss prevention capability to the most widely adopted OS across users’ work computers.
What Are the Key VMware Tunnel Features for Windows 10?
Some of the key beta-features that organizations will be able to experience are:
- Per-app VPN: ensures app-level security by allowing only specific internal and public apps to access corporate resources
- VPN on-demand: instant and automatic access to the VPN network when an application is launched
- VPN lockdown: adaptive access control to ensure only authorized users, managed devices and permitted apps have access to the VPN service
- Multi-factor authentication (MFA): requires multiple methods of authentication to verify user identity
- Application compatibility: works across internal or line-of-business apps, public or store apps and browsers on the device
How Does VMware Tunnel Benefit Customers?
The updated VMware Tunnel capabilities continue to redefine the enterprise mobility experience with enhanced security architecture, simplified management and a greater emphasis on the end-user VPN connectivity experience. The solution brings about benefits across end users, IT and the lines of business:
End Users:
- Native OS APIs ensure a familiar and stable user experience across any OS platform
- Automatic and instant connection to VPN for a frustration-free end-user experience
IT Admins:
- Enhanced overall security posture with management ease
- Enable conditional network access for apps, devices and users
- Works across OS platforms and across apps, whether public or internal
- Does not require any code changes, SDKs or wrapping solution
Businesses:
- Lower TCO for security sensitive deployments
- Minimize risk of corporate data loss
- Increased employee productivity with anytime, anywhere access to corporate resources
Where Can I Learn More about VMware Tunnel?
Make sure to sign up for our on-demand webinar where a VMware End-User Computing expert will speak about the traditional VPN challenges, demo new capabilities and answer questions related to VMware Tunnel.
