Are your cost savings initiatives being undermined?

Two recent industry events highlighted two consistent themes, underlining the stark reality of how the promise of cost savings is being undermined in many implementations, offering opportunities to harvest further cost savings benefits while increasing end-user satisfaction (and hence productivity) with mobile applications.

This came to the fore in Mobile Government 2010 event last week http://www.insidegovernment.co.uk/other/mobile-government/ , and also in the 8th Annual Field Service & Mobile Workforce Management (FSMW) 2010 event the week before http://www.field-mobile.com/ (which enjoyed strong representation from the public sector).

The first theme focussed on employing secure mobile working to drive costs down by increasing timeliness and effectiveness of the delivery of services across the public sector. Mobile technology supported initiatives in numerous presentations, increasing efficiency and the delivery of services across the public sector. Speakers detailed how mobile applications provide a key opportunity to enhance the delivery of service by relieving administrative burden and streamlining operations, driving progress, cost, economic and fuel savings, reducing carbon emissions and contributing to the achievement of green objectives.

Almost in the same breath, the second theme came to the fore. This was both highlighted in the keynote address last week at Mobile Gov 2010 by Bridget Hardy, Head of High Performing Property Services and Implementation, OGC, and throughout the day by numerous presentations and comments from the floor by representatives from a range of central and local government organisations.

Bridget's presentation was "Working Beyond Walls - The Government Workplace as an Agent for Change", focussing on the significant financial benefits in releasing costly real estate through hot-desking, flexible working and home working. Bridget shared her personal experiences and observations of a range of projects, that security solutions impacted her ability to work efficiently as they simply got in the way of effective working, especially when connections became less robust. At best this led to significant loss of time and frustration. At worst, it led to user rejection of the mobile application, returning to paper-based solutions and subsequent loss of efficiencies. Bridget echoed the theme heard throughout the two event - what was needed was a security solution that was transparent to end users, that could survive in areas of poor connectivity and could did not impact the end user when connections dropped. In short, the requirement was spelled out for trusted Seamless access across any available network type to the range of resources required to complete a task whilst out of the office.

As shared services and offering solutions through so-called "Cloud Computing " becomes more prevalent in government business flows and virtualized data centres, there is a stronger need for secure access to those corporate applications in the cloud for people away from the office. Again, being able to access these applications across any available network type is a critical success factor to achieving the financial savings from mobile working.

Why is mobile working so different?

A system designed with mobility in mind acts differently than central office based systems. Beyond the requirement for end-to-end GSi CoCo compliant remote access security, mobility also requires building solutions that can operate with intermittent connectivity. It also requires creating an infrastructure that can be aware of the context of network type and the take advantage various device types a user may employ to access applications as well as the evolving mobile web.

A detailed point that was surfaced in a number of discussions across the two events was that reliance on a so-called APN from a cellular carrier to provide secure communications for cellular connection was not adequate. As an example, an APN offers no protection at all if the organisation would like to employ any available Wi-Fi coverage to lower costs, even where that Wi-Fi coverage is provided by the same carrier. The reaction form most IT infrastructure professionals is to mitigate this risk by disabling Wi-Fi usage, and hence disabling a chunk of mobile working efficiency.

With the security of a Mobile VPN the same end-to-end protection is in force, without any end user distractions, regardless of which network type is in use. Hence Network Administrators can take comfort in the knowledge that their corporate network security policy is in force regardless of where the device is being used. This may be important to your organisation if you wish to give your mobile workers the freedom to connect to any available wireless network and still remain compliant with stringent security requirements. APNs are becoming legacy technology, and are used by the cellular industry to get a premium from commercial customers with the added benefits of establishing a "sticky" service. APNs are a way of locking a customer in to a particular network for longer than the normal contract period. Another fallacy is that APNs seemingly offer "dedicated bandwidth" but this is only on the backhaul. In the field (where speed really matters) the devices will still have to contend for bandwidth with every other cellular device currently using a channel on a cell-tower to make a voice call, performing a download to their iPhone or sending a picture message or video.

The OGC (Office of Government Communications) requirements for Code of Connection compliance state that where an APN is in use, it must be secured using a VPN. When you consider that an APN is not sufficiently secure to support the full requirements of mobile working, typically does not prioritise the customer's data traffic over the airwaves and carries and incremental charges that a network will typically make for this service, it warrants a closer comparison against alternative technologies. Please click here to have a look at a white paper from Rysavy Research that discusses the security issues around the use of APNs. This white paper discusses security recommendations and regulations, reviews the security mechanisms available with public wireless networks, explains where they fall short, and concludes that only an end-to-end security approach such as a mobile VPN can fully address the security needs for most applications.

As an example, NetMotion Wireless have a range of customers who have cancelled their APN contracts after they installed NetMotion Mobility XE, having experienced that Mobility XE provides the security benefits they sought of an APN across any public network infrastructure, including Wi-Fi and other bearer networks. The cancellation of these APN contracts has also help fund the Mobility XE software. In one case a single year's APN fees were more than the total capital cost of installing Mobility and so our customer was pleased to get a better and more secure infrastructure and show a direct saving on their balance sheet in the second year.

So, in summary, a solution such as NetMotion Mobility XE is a proven to support public sector mobile working initiatives with capabilities such as:

• End to end security across any network type
• Seamless roaming for applications across any network type
• Link optimisation to increase usability in areas of poor coverage and bad connections
• Best bandwidth routing - automatically using the best network available
• Authentication of Devices and Users using existing corporate sign-on mechanisms against the trusted corporate network.
• Application Session Persistence - preventing applications from data loss when connections are lost
• Analytics Reporting and alerts for users, devices, network usage and connection

.... key secure mobile working facilities which are not available from a typical APN solution.

Please refer to the Mobilising Public Services white paper in the side bar for more details on issues to consider when greater effectiveness and cost savings for Public Sector deployments are required, or click here for more details on obtaining a no cost evaluation of NetMotion Mobility XE software.