Product and Platform Introduction

Owned by Kari Mattsson
2017-12-26
4 min read

The EMM is a complete Enterprise Mobility Management solution to manage mobile devices in an organisation or multiple organisations, as well as at vendor or operator level.

EMM enables controlling not just company-issued devices, but also ensuring organisation policies in personally owned devices that are used also for work – the Bring Your Own Device (BYOD) model. The Manage Your Own Device (MYOD) model allows device owners to self-service all the basic tasks of device management without the need to contact support personnel.

The EMM service offers flexibility to manage devices with a vast range of different organisation policies.

The user classes of the service are as follows:

Device Owner
(end user / subscriber)
  • Has BYODs, CYODs, COPEs, or COBOs
  • Installs the EMM client app in the devices
  • Manages devices through the Self-Service Portal
Organisation Manager

Uses the Admin Portal to:

  • Manages organisation setting
  • Administer end users (subscribers)
  • Administer other organisation managers
Master/Vendor

Uses the Admin Portal to:

  • Creates new organisations (and deletes expired ones)
  • Manage organisations (all or selected subset)
  • May also execute same tasks as Organisation Manager
Supervisor
  • Administers the Admin Portals
  • Manages the server(s)
  • Creates new organisations (and deletes expired ones)
  • Manages Masters/Vendors
  • Manages Organisation Managers
  • Can not manage Device Owners or devices

Core Features

The basic features are as follows:

Private device data backup/restore, and management

All the private data, such as contacts, calendar, and photos and other files are backed up to the service. They can be managed through the self-service portal (see My Data section in the Device Owner's Guide).

Secure web portal for both the customer care or service desk as well as the device owner

The admin portal is for organisation managers, such as customer care or service desk operators. In addition, device owners can manage their own devices and data through the self-service portal (see the Device Owner's Guide to the Self-Service Portal).

Private find-my-device feature (complies with even the strictest laws) with opt-in and opt-out deployment options

You can locate a device immediately if it is connected to the Internet. You can also configure to actively track a device or all devices, such as in delivery operations.

See Locating a Device in the Device Owner's Guide for self-service location. Also organisation managers can locate a device in the Device Commands.

Self-service setup option for the service to lower TCO

Self-service can be handled in three ways: setting up the devices, setting up the personal account, and managing own devices and data through the self-service portal (see the Device Owner's Guide to the Self-Service Portal).

Other core features include:

  • Ready for 4G/LTE networks - no need for text messages on most modern device platforms
  • RESTful API to widely and deeply integrate the service to external platforms
  • Native support for mobile device platforms with their own protocols for best possible integration
  • Standards-based additional push-notification service for the most secure setups possible having sub-second high-quality responsiveness

Key Concepts

EMM

Enterprise Mobility Management

Enterprise mobility management covers managing mobile devices (MDM), content (MCM/MIM), and applications (MAM). The mobile devices are typically smart phones and tablets.

MDM

Mobile Device Management

Mobile device management means the management of settings, applications, and other features on mobile devices, as well as performing operations such as locating, locking, or wiping.

MCM/MIM

Mobile Content/Information Management

Mobile content management means access to personal data, such as contacts, calendar, etc., on different mobile devices. Changes are synchronised between the devices. Synchronisation also provides a backup of the data. Further, in an organisation, shared files can be made available to device owners.

BYOD

Bring Your Own Device

This is currently the most desired and most flexible model, where employees use their personally owned devices also for work. It has inherent problems with security, which EMM solves as far as possible. To make BYOD safer, EMM enforces security policies, disallows unsafe applications, allows remotely disabling the device, and so forth. It also installs and updates enterprise applications automatically.

MYOD

Manage Your Own Device

Whether your device is your personal one or a company-issue, you can manage or self-service some aspects of the device configuration yourself, while organization policies are set by the organization.

Self-service includes setting up new devices, reviewing policies, finding a misplaced device, and quickly disabling a lost device without contact to support personnel.

Managing your own device is done with the Self-Service Portal.

CYOD

Choose Your Own Device

This is just like as BYOD, but for security and other device management reasons, the selection of allowed devices is limited to enterprise-approved list of devices. Some devices may lack capabilities required by the organization.

COPE

Company-Owned Personally-Enabled

In this model, the company owns the devices, but enables employees to use them for personal purposes much like in the BYOD model. The organization has the ultimate control over the use of the devices and can decide what freedoms the users have. Most people want store their personal emails, photos and other communications on a single mobile device, which they also use for work. The BYOD model has been gaining popularity over the COPE model, because strong control over personal devices is disliked, and there is also the possibility of loss of important personal information in case of termination or other employer decision.

COBO

Company Owned Business Only

This is the most traditional closed model, which is most secure with most control over the devices, but has the least freedom for employees. It forces employees to keep separate personal devices, which encumbers employees with redundant devices and can make communication less flexible.