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BYOD - It Started One Christmas

Jim Swepson

It started one Christmas! Executive's wives in droves worldwide purchased the latest gadget, the IPAD, for their husbands. These happy guys spent time going online and realizing quickly that they could do more on this nifty tablet than just surf the web. In fact they could pretty much do what they were doing on their laptops. It wasn't long before they took these devices into their offices – not just showing off the latest toy but a new way to make their working lives easier and it wasn't long before they were badgering their IT departments for access to company applications on these new devices.

IT departments enabled the execs and other users of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and with increasing confidence BYOD gained momentum as it became pervasive among many of us. But complications ensued as the users wanted this capability everywhere, so what started in the confines of the office (relatively safe LAN) now had to contend with delivering these business applications in coffee houses, on trains, transport, and home territory across WiFi, 2g, 3G home network (ISP)etc.

When enabling BYOD there are 3 main areas to focus on:

- Security, e.g lost information, updating problems and there’s a growing number of protocols being developed around this issue.

- Availability, with questions such as can I use the app? will it work on my device? for example; certain Adobe apps no longer work on the apple iOS mobile devices - this may be a problem for companies who heavily use Adobe.

- Now the first two are obvious, but the third is as important - Is it any good? Are the users getting a good experience in the confines of the office and outside in a WiFi network. Two kinds of networks are available to BYOD: WiFi (which is generally provided by the company itself) and Mobile (3G/2G etc which is completely out of the corporations control).

It's emerged recently that there is a hidden cost in BYOD: the cost of unhappy users. When looking at BYOD, it's essential to not only understand the network usage but also to understand how an organization's application is being experienced and how it is performing.

Wireless networks are not the same as your corporate LAN or MPLS network. You need to know what is required to enable your applications to work well in wireless networks. If your users are receiving a lousy response to a business app, it won't be long before they will find ways around it and that might impact policies around security i.e. storing data on their devices rather than going to a central repository.

Yes, it's obvious that for BYOD to work the application must be available for the device and secured from a corporate perspective. What's often overlooked is poor performance which ultimately will render the applications just as unusable as if they weren't available. So performance factors need to be attended too and as a large amount of these hinge on the unpredictability of the wireless and mobile networks, BYOD devices inevitably are forced to operate and applications perform within these networks.

Many organizations recognize that they must test properly in these types of networks. Network emulators are often the answer. Now, with BYOD this falls to everyone to do and this technology is not just available, but it's a sensible and cost effective solution in understanding how BYOD will work in your environment.

Network emulation covers all the characteristics and conditions of a wireless network, showing in real time how network and wireless conditions impact applications. Some emulators also offer the ability to profile an organization's own networked environment. This is really useful for an accurate view of how bespoke applications will be experienced by the BYOD device users.

BYOD offers benefits for company and users alike but make sure the business understands the limitations and build key applications to suit these challenging network conditions as there is no point in being secure if no one will use it!

Jim Swepson is Pre-sales Technologist at Itrinegy.

Related Links:

www.itrinegy.com

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BYOD - It Started One Christmas

Jim Swepson

It started one Christmas! Executive's wives in droves worldwide purchased the latest gadget, the IPAD, for their husbands. These happy guys spent time going online and realizing quickly that they could do more on this nifty tablet than just surf the web. In fact they could pretty much do what they were doing on their laptops. It wasn't long before they took these devices into their offices – not just showing off the latest toy but a new way to make their working lives easier and it wasn't long before they were badgering their IT departments for access to company applications on these new devices.

IT departments enabled the execs and other users of BYOD (Bring Your Own Device) and with increasing confidence BYOD gained momentum as it became pervasive among many of us. But complications ensued as the users wanted this capability everywhere, so what started in the confines of the office (relatively safe LAN) now had to contend with delivering these business applications in coffee houses, on trains, transport, and home territory across WiFi, 2g, 3G home network (ISP)etc.

When enabling BYOD there are 3 main areas to focus on:

- Security, e.g lost information, updating problems and there’s a growing number of protocols being developed around this issue.

- Availability, with questions such as can I use the app? will it work on my device? for example; certain Adobe apps no longer work on the apple iOS mobile devices - this may be a problem for companies who heavily use Adobe.

- Now the first two are obvious, but the third is as important - Is it any good? Are the users getting a good experience in the confines of the office and outside in a WiFi network. Two kinds of networks are available to BYOD: WiFi (which is generally provided by the company itself) and Mobile (3G/2G etc which is completely out of the corporations control).

It's emerged recently that there is a hidden cost in BYOD: the cost of unhappy users. When looking at BYOD, it's essential to not only understand the network usage but also to understand how an organization's application is being experienced and how it is performing.

Wireless networks are not the same as your corporate LAN or MPLS network. You need to know what is required to enable your applications to work well in wireless networks. If your users are receiving a lousy response to a business app, it won't be long before they will find ways around it and that might impact policies around security i.e. storing data on their devices rather than going to a central repository.

Yes, it's obvious that for BYOD to work the application must be available for the device and secured from a corporate perspective. What's often overlooked is poor performance which ultimately will render the applications just as unusable as if they weren't available. So performance factors need to be attended too and as a large amount of these hinge on the unpredictability of the wireless and mobile networks, BYOD devices inevitably are forced to operate and applications perform within these networks.

Many organizations recognize that they must test properly in these types of networks. Network emulators are often the answer. Now, with BYOD this falls to everyone to do and this technology is not just available, but it's a sensible and cost effective solution in understanding how BYOD will work in your environment.

Network emulation covers all the characteristics and conditions of a wireless network, showing in real time how network and wireless conditions impact applications. Some emulators also offer the ability to profile an organization's own networked environment. This is really useful for an accurate view of how bespoke applications will be experienced by the BYOD device users.

BYOD offers benefits for company and users alike but make sure the business understands the limitations and build key applications to suit these challenging network conditions as there is no point in being secure if no one will use it!

Jim Swepson is Pre-sales Technologist at Itrinegy.

Related Links:

www.itrinegy.com

Hot Topics

The Latest

According to Auvik's 2025 IT Trends Report, 60% of IT professionals feel at least moderately burned out on the job, with 43% stating that their workload is contributing to work stress. At the same time, many IT professionals are naming AI and machine learning as key areas they'd most like to upskill ...

Businesses that face downtime or outages risk financial and reputational damage, as well as reducing partner, shareholder, and customer trust. One of the major challenges that enterprises face is implementing a robust business continuity plan. What's the solution? The answer may lie in disaster recovery tactics such as truly immutable storage and regular disaster recovery testing ...

IT spending is expected to jump nearly 10% in 2025, and organizations are now facing pressure to manage costs without slowing down critical functions like observability. To meet the challenge, leaders are turning to smarter, more cost effective business strategies. Enter stage right: OpenTelemetry, the missing piece of the puzzle that is no longer just an option but rather a strategic advantage ...

Amidst the threat of cyberhacks and data breaches, companies install several security measures to keep their business safely afloat. These measures aim to protect businesses, employees, and crucial data. Yet, employees perceive them as burdensome. Frustrated with complex logins, slow access, and constant security checks, workers decide to completely bypass all security set-ups ...

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Cloudbrink's Personal SASE services provide last-mile acceleration and reduction in latency

In MEAN TIME TO INSIGHT Episode 13, Shamus McGillicuddy, VP of Research, Network Infrastructure and Operations, at EMA discusses hybrid multi-cloud networking strategy ... 

In high-traffic environments, the sheer volume and unpredictable nature of network incidents can quickly overwhelm even the most skilled teams, hindering their ability to react swiftly and effectively, potentially impacting service availability and overall business performance. This is where closed-loop remediation comes into the picture: an IT management concept designed to address the escalating complexity of modern networks ...

In 2025, enterprise workflows are undergoing a seismic shift. Propelled by breakthroughs in generative AI (GenAI), large language models (LLMs), and natural language processing (NLP), a new paradigm is emerging — agentic AI. This technology is not just automating tasks; it's reimagining how organizations make decisions, engage customers, and operate at scale ...

In the early days of the cloud revolution, business leaders perceived cloud services as a means of sidelining IT organizations. IT was too slow, too expensive, or incapable of supporting new technologies. With a team of developers, line of business managers could deploy new applications and services in the cloud. IT has been fighting to retake control ever since. Today, IT is back in the driver's seat, according to new research by Enterprise Management Associates (EMA) ...

In today's fast-paced and increasingly complex network environments, Network Operations Centers (NOCs) are the backbone of ensuring continuous uptime, smooth service delivery, and rapid issue resolution. However, the challenges faced by NOC teams are only growing. In a recent study, 78% state network complexity has grown significantly over the last few years while 84% regularly learn about network issues from users. It is imperative we adopt a new approach to managing today's network experiences ...

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