Today, businesses are still learning how to navigate our newfound world in which traditional ways of working aren’t feasible. In light of recent events, the team at VMware as well as many organizations have had to embrace a remote work environment and an unknown future. As employees transition to a new remote reality, it’s imperative that businesses prioritize security in business continuity planning to ensure that employees can be up and running in their new environment as efficiently as possible.
Balancing employee experience and maintaining security should be your number one priority for business continuity. While we previously discussed Employee Experience and the important role it plays in keeping employees connected and engaged, equally important is security and the impact it has in facilitating a remote work environment. Many organizations have been quick to announce flexible work options, but not everyone has the security infrastructure that adapts to this type of work environment. As workstyles have become flexible and technologies like mobile and cloud have matured, a Zero Trust model for security is gaining traction. Because it continuously verifies trust across devices, users and apps before granting access to data, this model offers greater flexibility to employees working from anywhere and on any device while ensuring optimal security at all times.
But how do organizations implement holistic security for a distributed workforce? Luckily, VMware Workspace ONE comes with all of the capabilities required to verify trust across users, devices and applications before granting access to enterprise data. By facilitating a Zero Trust environment, the VMware Workspace ONE platform is a tool that is helping businesses enable their newly remote workforce without compromising security. Take Workspace ONE Access, for example. Workspace ONE Access delivers a more secure experience by providing multi-factor authentication conditional access and single sign-on to SaaS, web and native mobile apps. Because this tool is hosted as SaaS and VMware manages the infrastructure, IT teams can focus on managing devices, applications and security policies.
Additionally, Workspace ONE’s Unified Endpoint Management capabilities reduce costs and improve security with modern, over-the-air management of every enterprise endpoint. With Workspace ONE UEM, users can take comfort knowing that their corporate devices are safeguarded with enterprise-grade security and enjoy one-touch, secure access to any app across any device with the unified app catalog. But what if an employee is using their own device as opposed to a corporate one? This is likely the case for many who have had to abruptly transition from in-office to home office over the last couple of months. While UEM admins have limited control over a BYOD device, admins can strike a balance between physical device applications, remote desktops (VDI), and applications with Workspace ONE. These two options can seamlessly work together, achieving the balance between employee access and IT Security.
Virtual desktop infrastructure (VDI) and app virtualization technology are also critical for maintaining security and minimizing business disruption. With desktop and app virtualization, IT can quickly and efficiently deliver secure virtual desktops and apps by using centralized management and providing a great user experience. Desktop and app virtualization can also play an integral role in helping deliver on business continuity, disaster recovery and remote work use cases, as part of a comprehensive digital workspace strategy.
Leveraging hybrid-cloud VDI and apps can also help enable a more secure remote work environment. While historically on-premise or private cloud models have helped customers simplify desktop and app management while securing data and reducing IT costs, IT doesn’t always have the time and budget to stand up this infrastructure. This doesn’t exactly bode well for remote work at scale use cases, where quick time-to-value is required. That’s where hybrid-cloud virtual desktop and app models like Horizon 7 with VMware Cloud Foundation, powered by Dell EMC VxRail and Horizon 7 on VMware Cloud on AWS come in. With these solutions in place, organizations can easily deploy virtual desktops and apps while securing their critical data.
Lastly, users can enjoy greater security with Workspace ONE’s solution Carbon Black Cloud. This core feature combines the intelligent system hardening and behavioral prevention needed to keep emerging threats at bay. This cloud-native endpoint protection platform (EPP) uses a single lightweight agent and an easy-to-use console to consolidate multiple security capabilities.
Adopting a remote first culture doesn’t have to mean trading enterprise security for productivity and Employee Experience. In fact, a holistic business continuity plan prioritizes security for any device, anywhere. By integrating virtual applications and desktops with Workspace ONE core solutions, organizations can ensure a consistent and secure user experience for whatever the future holds.
Here are a few of our favorite blogs and resources from our Business Continuity series.
Blogs
• Keeping IT Security Front and Center When Planning for Business Continuity: Workspace ONE
• Can BYOD Help While Working Remote?
• Steps to Enable a Remote Workforce with Workspace ONE – Part 1 and Steps to Enable a Remote Workforce with Workspace ONE – Part 2
Virtual Events
• On-Demand Recording: Pandemic Preparedness and Response: How to Quickly Set Up a Remote Workforce for Success
• On-Demand Recording: Employee Experience Summit
