The scale of today’s distributed workforce, due to the pandemic, has amplified the proliferation of digital technologies and platforms in use. While organizations try to stay operational, they are moving more apps to the cloud which is driving new information silos. As workforces shrink and grow and some employees opt to remain home, the anywhere organizations’ device mix is increasingly heterogeneous as they adopt more flexible BYOD arrangements. As a result, every new device connected to an enterprise network represents a possible attack vector for would-be hackers. All these factors break down the enterprise security perimeter, catapulting the need for Zero Trust security models even further.
That’s why I’m thrilled we unveiled earlier today VMware’s new security solutions and our Future Ready Workforce Solutions as they are a true testament to our unique approach to the future of work. Founded on an intrinsic security approach that builds security into every control plane– from network, endpoint, cloud, identity all the way to workload, VMware turns each of these vectors into points of security control, significantly reducing the attack surface. Furthermore, it unifies these threat vectors in the context of apps and data across any app, any cloud, and any device in an industry first approach to increase the level of security for today’s distributed workforce.
Holistic Vision for the Future of Work
This powerful rethink, substantiated through our Future Ready Workforce Solutions, is designed to meet the needs of today’s distributed workforce. During this pandemic, the scale of employees working from home has pushed network capacities, security at the edge and good digital workspace experiences to the limit. VMware has been able to address these fundamental needs by leveraging key elements of SD-WAN network services and security through Secure Access Services Edge (SASE), Endpoint Security and Digital Workspace. These technologies work together to deliver any application from any cloud onto any device, so organizations can unlock the value of this holistic approach – enabling powerful workforce experiences, end to end zero trust security controls, and simplified management, no matter where one is working.
Future Ready Workforce Solutions: Reaping the Rewards
End to End Zero Trust Security: As the perimeter of an organization has now extended to the home, VMware Future Ready Workforce solutions are uniquely positioned to deliver end to end Zero Trust security. Organizations can build trust in devices that are accessing enterprise data with Workspace ONE UEM, better secure them with Carbon Black Endpoint solutions and use it to drive dynamic conditional access decisions to validate user identity as well. Least privilege capabilities that start from devices or virtual sessions with Unified Access Gateway (UAG) and extend to the network with NSX micro-segmentation enable a user session to be protected. And now with our VMware SASE Platform, we have a convergent infrastructure that offers end to end Zero Trust security enabling any user access to any app from any device.
Simplified Management: A distributed workforce has driven data, apps, devices, and networks to be more fragmented than ever and managing them all especially with a remote IT organization creates its own challenges. Traditional on-premises management tools are a high touch process, often requiring thousands of configuration settings, and often don’t provide visibility into remote or off-network devices. Future Ready Workforce Solutions, including Workspace ONE, enable cloud-first, modern management across physical or virtual endpoints, apps, and enterprise services. It provides the management depth, real-time compliance, and data-driven insights that IT needs to simplify IT operations, harden security, and engage and empower employees with an “any app, any device” experience. In addition, technologies such as Horizon further simplify management as it helps efficiently deploy and scale virtual desktops and apps from a single control plan with rapid provisioning and automation. These features enable IT modernization and allow the breakthrough of traditional silos, lowering IT complexity and total cost of ownership for today’s anywhere organizations.
Exceptional Workforce Experiences: The digital workspace represents a holistic change in the way IT delivers end-user services. This transformative initiative arms IT with the tools they need to manage and better secure a variety of devices—and offer frictionless access to the apps and data that employees need to get work done. An effective digital workspace platform is now more critical than ever as remote employees expect a smooth ‘work from anywhere’ experience that their organization provides, from the time they join the company and beyond, so they can perform with agility and be productive from the start. Through best of class technologies including Horizon, Workspace One and VMware SD-WAN by VeloCloud, VMware Future Ready Workforce solutions provide the remote worker an employee-centric approach that delivers immediate productivity and engagement, while offering accelerated performance and uncompromised connectivity.
Accelerating the Future Ready Journey
Without a doubt, this is one of the most exciting times for me at VMware. With our strategy, the new capabilities we’ve announced, and more importantly, the value Future Ready Workforce Solutions brings to every customer looking to better secure their distributed workforce, reduce IT complexity and fragmentation, and streamline siloed employee experiences under this new normal, today’s announcements are just a first step. We will continue to build more value in helping to solve today’s distributed organizations challenges for today and tomorrow.
