It is hard enough for an IT department to manage all of the devices that it purchases, rents or leases, but adding in those devices that employees purchase on their own is a whole other challenge. Learning best practices of running a Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) program is essential before actually implementing one in your workplace. Even though it may seem overwhelming to think of managing all of your employees’ devices, there are ways to simplify the management.
As mentioned in another blog post on BYOD programs, by leveraging a desktop virtualization approach, employees can easily access their data, software and systems from a remote location on any computing devices that they might choose. In one of our latest blogs, we talked about how virtualization also offers the ability to provide a secure environment no matter where the device is being used, which is essential when dealing with corporate information.
Desktop virtualization also makes it much easier to manage the myriad of devices being used by employees. With the software applications hosted in a secure data center, for example, the IT staff only needs to update the latest applications on the server once and not on multiple computing devices throughout the organization. The users can download or update authorized applications on the devices of their choice without ever involving the IT department.
VMware makes it easy to manage a BYOD program by linking applications and customized virtual desktops to user identities versus specific devices – requiring IT to focus on the applications and not on the individual devices.
The task of specifying and purchasing computing devices can be time-consuming and with the BYOD approach, these responsibilities are put in the hands of the employees and lessen the workload for the IT department. And, when it comes to issues, the users call the vendors directly to resolves the challenges as part of owning their own devices.
With desktop virtualization and BYOD programs, IT departments are able to spend more time focusing on strategic IT issues and less on the day-to-day management of the computing environment.
In the next blog post, we will talk about developing a BYOD policy to minimize any risk and empower the users to be as productive as possible.