Comments : 5

Mobile Device Management (MDM) and Microsoft Exchange Server

Posted by Vishal Vasu | Posted on 28-01-2013

Category : Exchange Server

Tags: , , , , ,

A couple of months back, GESIA (www.gesia.org) had organised a Seminar on Mitigating Risks from Software License Mismanagement with KPMG in Ahmedabad and an interesting topic was discussed – BYOD. Since I was one of the panellists, I did share my views and thoughts on the same, but it did make me ponder further on the topic. I started digging out various articles, blog posts and turned a few pages in my library.

The most immediate BYOD I could identify that could pose as an immediate threat and needs to have a mention in the companies IT policy is mobile phones or smartphones. Most corporates have started providing access of emails to their employees on mobile devices as they want to ensure that information is available to everyone at their fingertips in this fast paced world and competitive markets.

A recent survey by ISACA (www.isaca.org) on BYOD in an Indian workplace raised serious concerns pertaining to security and ownership. IT professionals in India continue to remain resistant to the BYOD trend. In fact, more than half (56%) reported that the risk outweighs the benefit. The survey also highlighted that India ranked at the top among its global counterparts in prohibiting BYOD. Nearly half (46%) of Indian enterprises prohibit the use of personal mobile devices for work to mitigate the risk to the enterprise. This trend was followed by Europe (39%), China (30%) and US (29%).

Regarding security controls for employees’ personal devices, nearly half (47%) of Indian enterprises reported deploying password management controls as a security layer, compared to China and Europe (44%) and US (42%). India registered a lower interest on remote wipe capability (29%), which allows employers to erase the contents of an employee’s personal device as a security measure, compared to US (46%), China (39%) and Europe (37%).

On the other hand, a recent survey by Juniper Research (specialises in identifying and appraising new high growth market sectors within the mobile ecosystem) states that the number of consumer smartphones and tablets brought in to the work environments will more than double by 2014. Juniper Research claims that the number of devices being used in the corporate environment will reach 350 million globally compared to the 150 million which are already used in 2012. The study from Juniper Research also predicts most of the Bring-Your-Own-Device (BYOD) activity will happen in Western Europe. The region will account for 140 million devices in 2014. This is followed by North America and the Asia/Pacific area.

So the question is, should CIO’s and CISO’s be ignoring the concept of BYOD and Mobile Device Management (MDM) – especially for smartphones or should they start gearing up for the same so that when the time comes, we are ready?

If we think that restricting BYOD’s like smartphones and mobiles is the best approach – the matter ends there.

If we consider the figures as published by Juniper Research and consider the fact that mobility is taking an increasingly strong hold in the enterprise – BYOD policies and security practises need to be redefined – especially for the mobile workforce.

Mobile Device Management (MDM) plays a key role here. Any device which is granted access to corporate information needs to have access and password policies enforced, needs to be tagged, tracked, logged and backed up irrespective of type and location of the device. Ok, so basically it needs to be maintained and tracked as a desktop or laptop by the IT team.

But what happens if a phone is lost or stolen and no longer can be accessed physically? In this case, the data residing on the device poses as the worst security threat. IT heads need something through which they can control the devices over air and either lock them down or wipe them clean i.e. nuke it!

For those who are using Microsoft Exchange, this feature is already built in to it along with many others and there is no need to worry about the recurring costs for device management. The Direct Push technology from Microsoft has been extended further in Exchange Server to allow even greater control for administrators over mobile device security. Moreover, it also allows assigning policies to specific users, lock down devices through policies, define and enforce password policies and even remotely wipe a mobile device.

For a complete list, please visit http://technet.microsoft.com/en-us/library/cc540452.aspx

In fact, Microsoft Exchange 2013 which is targeted to be rolled out somewhere in the first quarter of 2013, has full support for iPhones, iPads, Android tablets, Android phones, Apple Macs, Linux systems in addition to Windows devices, Windows RT tablets, and Windows 8 systems. The reality is that there are no special “apps” needed to be downloaded for multi-endpoint support. The support is facilitated by leveraging the native Outlook Web App (OWA) that is provided by Exchange 2013.

I’ll be shortly posting a step-by-step article on how Exchange Administrators can define policies for Mobile Device Management in Exchange with few best practises. Till then do keep sharing your views and thoughts on Mobile Device Management (MDM).

Comments : 5

Exchange Server 2010 Resource Mailbox Management

Posted by Vishal Vasu | Posted on 31-08-2012

Category : Exchange Server

Tags: ,

Exchange admins have been creating dedicated mailboxes to represent conference rooms for years. In previous versions of Exchange Server, administrators created standard mailboxes and assigned delegates to manage meeting requests. In exchange server 2010 resource mailbox management includes new functions that make life easier for admins and end users alike.

Creating room mailboxes in Exchange Server 2010

Mailbox creation is generally accomplished via the Exchange Management Console (EMC).  Administrators get several options after they launch the EMC. The two available resource mailbox types are Room and Equipment.

Navigate through the new mailbox wizard in the EMC and you’ll notice that it is not necessary to have a password to create a resource. This is because newly created resource mailboxes are associated with a disabled Active Directory user. Remember, Exchange 2010 resource mailboxes are not interactive; think of them as service accounts.

After creating a room, look at its properties in the EMC. You’ll find several tabs that start with the word “Resource.” You may not need to change the default settings, but pay attention to the resource policy options. You can allow or disallow recurring meetings, set the maximum length of a meeting or even restrict how far in the future you can book meetings.

Automatically accepting or declining Exchange 2010 meeting requests

Exchange Server 2010 resource mailbox management includes a calendar attendant that can automatically accept or decline meeting requests. This saves admins from assigning delegates to manage meeting requests — although that’s still an option. Meeting requests fall into two categories: in-policy or out-of-policy. If a resource request doesn’t violate the in-policy options, the meeting is automatically accepted. If the request is out-of-policy, it is automatically declined. These policies are generally used to ensure that overlapping meetings are not scheduled for the same resource. It is also possible to customize settings in the room mailbox’s properties tab.

Admins can also customize who can automatically book meetings or who is subject to approval by a delegate. Just use the in-policy request option for the Exchange 2010 resource mailbox.

Customizing automated Exchange 2010 meeting responses

Admins can also add custom text to meeting responses (the calendar attendant must be enabled). Not all conference rooms are equal; some include projectors, whiteboards and so on. Admins can add custom properties that represent these items to their Exchange 2010 organizations. They can also selectively add those properties to resource mailboxes as needed. The caveat here is that you can only add custom properties from the EMS.

Simplify searches using the Outlook 2010 room finder feature

If your company is geographically dispersed, you can group room mailboxes into “room lists.” A room list is a distribution group that contains one or more room mailboxes. Outlook 2010 includes a room finder feature that helps users locate a room in a specific building or physical location. Room lists must be created from the EMS.

Comments : 2

What will you buy next – Phone and Tablet or Phablet?

Posted by Vishal Vasu | Posted on 08-07-2012

Category : General

Tags: ,

The shift in cyber-age has caused a change in how people communicate today. People seek and need information at their fingertips. Gadgets are becoming a part of our daily life and people today cannot live without one. The Internet changed our way of finding new information and even friends. Technology has caused communication to change drastically. It seems that everyone today carries a smartphone and many almost feel lost if they forget their phone at home. Email and text messages have also changed the way that people interact on a daily basis. The market is being flooded with new devices at a rapid pace.

So what will you choose next – a Phone and Tablet or Phablet?

A combination of smartphone serving the purpose of a tablet forms a “Phablet”.

Coming back to our point of discussion – what to choose? Smartphone with a big screen which fits snuggly in to your pocket or a tablet? The basic tasks that one want’s to do while away from their desktops is to check emails, catch up on social sites like Twitter and Facebook, browsing the web and listening to music or watch movies to kill time. So basically, what one needs in their travel kit are three main devices – a phone to make calls, a Mobile Internet Device (MID) to check emails or connect to friends on social media sites and a laptop when you need to do more CPU and memory intensive work. Given that these three devices both compete as well as complement each other to a certain extent, could a smartphone or laptop make it unnecessary for us to carry a tablet?

The SmartPhone

The smartphone evolved from PDAs (Personal Digital Assistant) and is certainly more mobile.

Samsung Galaxy Note - N7000

With screen sizes going up to 5 inches (my Samsung Galaxy Note is 5.3 inch) the smartphone still remains the lightest. One can hardly carry a laptop in one’s pocket and even a 7 inch tablet won’t fit in your pockets. Moreover, the smartphone also allows you to do phone calls comfortably and throw in the fast processing power (some models offering Dual Core Processors) and adequate storage to hold your movies and music, the smartphone becomes a irreplaceable device.

The Tablet

Coming to tablets, one gets the same functions as that are offered in a good smartphone, except that on a tablet, it’s a larger screen. Steve Jobs once said that in order for the tablet to become a hit, it would have to do “far better” at seven key things than the smartphone or notebook. They are browsing, email, photos, videos, music, games and e-Books. Well, the new breed of large screen smartphone do all that and that too with great processing power.

The Laptop, Netbook and Ultrabook

Let’s shift our focus now on laptops, netbooks and ultrabooks. Since the past two years tablets have been eating into the laptop market and now ultrabooks have joined the bandwagon too. The biggest advantage a tablet offers over a laptop is the size and weight. However a drawback of having a tablet over a laptop is that none of the applications designed for the PC run on a tablet. Tablets run on Android or on Apple iOS operating systems.

Netbooks are another type of laptops that come in very small size and shape. These are basically toned down low cost versions of laptops. Most of the netbooks are powered by Intel Atom processors and lack an optical drive. They are meant for daily PC needs and not for resource consuming applications.

Ultrabooks have only been introduced recently into the market and are already gaining popularity. An ultrabook is basically a high end laptop/notebook that has been designed to be less on weight and thickness. They offer higher battery life due to the use of new processors from Intel. The ultrabooks are designed under specific guidelines laid out by Intel and are under 20mm thick.

Welcome Microsoft Surface

Microsoft recently announced the “Surface”. This is a PC tablet that runs Windows 8 Operating System which is yet to be released – though the Consumer Preview as well as the Release Preview are already out.

Microsoft Surface Tablet PC

The tablet features some standard tablet specifications, including a 10.6 inch high-definition touchscreen and front and rear facing cameras. All this fits into a 9.3 mm magnesium frame which weighs 1.5 pounds. But Surface also brings some new innovations to the tablet space.

The device’s cover, for instance, flips down to become a full keyboard. It features a rigid case built from magnesium, a pen that clicks into the tablet and a built-in kickstand. The best feature – which would make people at Apple scratch their heads – is the magnetic cover that snaps firmly into place and functions as a keyboard. Now, why did not Apple think of that before?

My Choice

If I were to consider choosing my Mobile Internet Device (MID), I would go in for a big screen smartphone like the Samsung Galaxy Note which has a 5.3 inch AMOLED screen with 16M colours, 1.4 GHz Dual Core Processor, 1 GB of RAM, 32 GB storage with an additional 8GB microSD card and weighing just 178 grams.

On the other hand, while choosing my work device, I would eagerly wait for Microsoft to launch their “Surface” as it plans to pack within it Intel Core i5 processor, 4GB of RAM and a 128GB SSD. It also has USB and micro-HDMI ports and a micro-SD card expansion slot and comes loaded with Microsoft’s Windows 8.

Given that these three products compete and complement each other to a certain extent, could our smartphone or laptop make it unnecessary for us to have a tablet as well? Share your views.

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