As just about everyone knows, mobile devices are the fastest growing type of device connecting to your network today. This is a very delicate situation, because while remote access from conventional computers has been a standard for a number of years, mobile devices are relatively new and many of them are not designed with security in mind. For example, the vast majority of mobile devices do not run anti-malware applications and there is very little documentation on how to secure each type of mobile device.
Management is another major problem with mobile devices. While its a simple affair to manage and monitor remote laptops, such centralized management of mobile devices is not so easy. Centralized configuration of these devices would go a long way at helping secure your network environment and the data contained on the mobile devices themselves.
Having recognized this problem, I was pleasantly surprised to see the Microsoft is coming out with a new product: Microsoft System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008. I didn’t think it was possible to come out with any more members of the System Center family, but this new product looks like it will be exceptionally useful for the Microsoft admin who needs to deal with the onslaught of hand held computing devices connecting to their networks today.
For more information about MS System Center Mobile Device Manager 2008, check out:
http://www.microsoft.com/windowsmobile/mobiledevicemanager/default.mspx
http://www.microsoft.com/systemcenter/mobile/default.mspx
HTH,
Tom
Thomas W Shinder, M.D.
Site: http://www.isaserver.org/
Blog: http://blogs.isaserver.org/shinder/
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MVP – Microsoft Firewalls (ISA)