As the need and acceptance for 24×7 connectivity grows in both personal and professional lives of burgeoning corporate professionals all over the globe, a large number of organizations are moving towards enterprise-wide mobility. Such a business model requires intelligent application stores with a strong suite of functionalities.
“Mobile platforms to support corporate app warehouse structure can be looked at.”
This can be achieved by provisioning of applications for a particular user through an identity management platform. However, for multiple reasons that relate to security, control and performance, it’s absolutely necessary that enterprise architects should first think about creating an enterprise app warehouse, which is available to users based on their roles and responsibilities.
An enterprise app warehouse can manage corporate sanctioned apps on all connected devices–PCs, cell-phones, tablets or any other procurement strategies. The idea therefore is to distribute an enterprise oriented application through app stores like Google, Apple or an enterprise app store within mobile platforms. This will create a new enterprise marketplace inside an existing marketplace.
“Setting up functionalities and app related capabilities is possible with correct approach.”
Enterprise app store application needs to be built and deployed through public app stores. What this means is that platforms like Apple, Google or microsoft need to set certain policies where organizations can discretely and securely distribute apps to their employees while taking advantage of the services the store provides.
Dedicated profiles need to be created for the app store, which will share login credentials and SSO capabilities between the apps within the enterprise app store. The apps or services distributed through these channels should then get synced to ensure they are encrypted or SSO compliant, thereby making it easier for IT admin to monitor usages and accesses. Furthermore, from an IdM system, the provisioned apps will be able to take advantage of features like geo-fencing and time-based usage and the admin should be able to lock these apps based on the time, frequency or the location of an employee. For e.g. employees won’t be able to access these apps over a weekend or in a country of conflict to protect sensitive data.
When a user is off-boarded, enterprise app store will no longer exist for that specific user, applicable for cases where mobiles are being stolen or lost, and helpdesk can revoke access. Also possibilities like remote wipe and account removals should be fairly easy without physically wiping or confiscating the devices. The good news is companies such as Blackberry, Google and Apple are already partnering with established defense companies, banks and IT giants to make this a reality.
The app culture created fear in the minds of security professionals, but it was not long before a fix was found. The lunch table discussion is now no more about the problems, but the possibilities surrounding enterprises using app warehouse. So, don’t be afraid about app-synchronized IT environments, there is already an app (store) for businesses to capitalize on!