Orgs are realizing the benefits of mobility and IoT for a smart workplace: Aruba

Dataquest had a quick chat with Santanu Ghose, Director Networking - Aruba, a Hewlett Packard Enterprise Company on the sidelines of digitization and how it can transform business. Here are the excerpts:

What are the digital challenges organizations are faced with?

The digitization megatrend has taken over all aspects of business and society. Companies are racing to migrate to operating models that allow them to cater to their customers 24x7 in real time. Understanding the dynamics of the “connected” world and making the necessary changes in the context for digital transformation is of utmost importance. Assessing businesses’ preparedness in not just adopting technology but also integration and engagement throughout the organization is essential.

Digital transformation in any organization faces challenges in the following aspects:

• Leadership
• Legacy infrastructure
• Customer experience
• Employee and Supplier Engagement
• Competition
• Talent

Amongst these, legacy infrastructure is the most important one that needs to change as these were built on the concept of static, wired desktop clients that communicated with a pool of internal servers. Upgrading infrastructure can help organizations compete against attackers as well as develop tactical advantage in business. Today, organizations need to replace their legacy wired networks with one that is secure and encourages collaboration and mobility through wireless connectivity.

How is the nature of collaborating at work changing as mobile users today want to access business applications anywhere, anytime?

Thanks to the enthusiastic adoption of smartphones, tablets and IoT devices, the way we communicate with each other, consume services and manage our personal lives is transforming drastically. Similarly work spaces are seeing a change as well. Digitization of businesses has given rise to wireless, digital workplaces encouraging collaborative open spaces and non-routine schedules to become the new norm.

Organizations are realizing the benefits of mobility and IoT for a smart workplace. #GenMobile workforce are available to work anytime, anywhere. Deploying a mobile first office not only makes employees productive, but also increases workplace effectiveness.

As IoT is becoming mainstream with connected devices increasing significantly, how can organizations make their IT infrastructure future-proof?

Traditional networking models were built on the notion of static desktop clients talking to a server, creating the classic Local Area Network (LAN) architecture. They had long deployment cycles and were optimized for an organisation’s operational model based on either price or performance. Such models also offered unnecessary troubles in terms of complexity and expense.

Today’s mobile-cloud applications work on a lifecycle measured in hours and days with a continuous integration model that is optimized for innovation. They offer advantages to organisations to adapt in real time to changing conditions in the application, network, and business environment. Unlike the traditional models, there won’t be efforts spent on truck rolls during moves, adds and changes.

The new network model takes actions based on context — user role, device type, application category, location — and ensure best performance and highest level of security for all things connected. It also allows IT to gain valuable insights on device, app, and real estate usage helping businesses measure return on investment for BYOD/IoT, new business workflows, and digital workplaces.

How can network management help organizations to leverage real time contextual data to secure user and corporate data?

Digital workplace brings with it its own bag of challenges when it comes to security. Enterprises should be able to modify their security policies quickly and enforce underlying infrastructure changes on-demand. This is imperative because the network is accessed by a large number of cloud-powered devices and apps. In order to make a workplace secure, enterprise IT teams should look at developing a common policy framework that can protect business resources, regardless of device type or connection method by leveraging real-time, trusted, contextual data.

The new Aruba ClearPass Policy Manager 6.6 allows security operations teams to create policies that adapt to BYOD growth and the emerging challenges surrounding IoT adoption. It enables custom device profiling for uncategorized connected devices, multi-factor authentication on mobile devices for network usage, and deeper forensics into security incidents.

Through its integration with Duo Security and ImageWare systems, it enables stronger mobile device and app authentication. Through real-time interaction with third party security solutions, Aruba ClearPass offers automated threat protection and recovery for devices that represent risk, with minimal hands-on IT interaction.

In addition to CPPM, Aruba Airwave provides industry’s best real-time monitoring, proactive alerts, historical reporting and insight on application performance to strengthen wireless security and demonstrate regulatory compliance.

Organisations wanting to adapt to the mobile-cloud infrastructure need to consider the changes it will bring to the workplace. It is therefore important that they assess what type of technologies can best help them in this process of transformation.