Mobile content management: is it wireless's own pain point?

No more desks, no more chairs, no more clunky desktop computers, no more water coolers, break rooms, no more pens, legal pads, paper memos. It's all on the move--offices travel as fast as you do now, and your data travels even faster.

Remote Office

While the main B2C (Business to Consumer) vertices for mobile services are still in downloading ring tones, text messaging and phone-blogging, the greatest business response has been the B2E (Business to Employee) arena. Companies are finding that internal usage of wireless applications are allowing for reduced travel costs, higher productivity, less paper usage and more efficient inter-departmental processes. In the workplace, mobile devices allow for constantly updated information like schedule changes and hardware operation. Companies need teams with off-site access and up to the minute information when interacting with clients. Applications are now focusing on unified messaging--channeling all forms of communication (voice, fax, e-mail) into one compatible device for notification, review and response. Wireless employees (or mobile workers, as they are sometimes called) don't require dedicated real estate in any office layout; they just as easily work from a home, a hotel room, or a veal pen.

Externally wireless is exploding, as a series of last-mile issues are being sidestepped or conquered altogether with the widespread implementation of Wireless Access Points (WAP). Rest areas along highways, music festivals, convenience stores, universities, hotels, bookstores--even Central Park--is wired for WiFi. It won't be long before Internet access is uninterrupted and everywhere you are. Today's IT professional attends a meeting in the middle of a crosswalk, uploads his mission-critical documents in a coffee house, and checks his network stability with a cell phone. Whether managing wireless enterprise functionality or retrieving a satellite map in the field, mobility is leading the pack in the productivity race and WiFi is building the track.

Content Retrieval and Delivery

With the increase in mobility of the modern professional, mobile content management issues have come to the forefront as the concerns of getting critical data and applications to the external workforce mount. Mobile office actualization is a palpable reality, as outsourcing rises. Wireless device application updates must occur automatically, assuring that all users can view data with proper formatting.

How many times have you seen a gaggle of suits from various departments enter a conference room for a meeting and huddle around as the first fifteen minutes are wasted--sorting through the "Who's on First" routine of the proper document shuffle, a duck-row effort getting miscellaneous handhelds, laptops, blackberries and tablet PCs on the same page--before anything can begin? Modern enterprise applications have policy-driven software distribution functionality that allows a manager to set up a series of rules that define the asset possession of external devices, updating of application virus software and documents and can even remove them after a specified date. Managers have more ability to control document versions and push information team-wide before the meeting, making sure that everyone is looking at the same thing at the same time.

Maintaining the integrity of all streams flowing into and out of the main data pool, both remote office and remote enterprise management hinge on the same platform--that of bi-directional data replication. This is the ability of the user, regardless of connectivity, to have an inherent version control within the redundant data architecture and read/write capability with multiple mobile devices.

Enterprise Systems and Bi-Directional Replication/Synchronization

With the expanding reach of connectivity or the outright dissolution of the connectivity issue using smarter background synchronization, today's enterprise systems are being managed from external devices more than ever. Application designers such as Peer Direct are now starting to integrate inherent wireless functionality into enterprise design services. With a more resilient infrastructure, updates are reinstated when cut off. Monitors allow for bandwidth throttling and plan updates for the most appropriate times, based on the user. Automated synchronization is controlled and scheduled with the centralized application coordinating all remote updates together, maintaining data integrity among all devices and users.

Mandatory push delivery subscription and notification changes can all be controlled through optional thick or thin client management. Varying levels of integration with operation support systems (OSS) and server management systems (SMS) mean that wireless capability can be implemented without serious downtime or complete renegotiating of IT processes. Overall stronger wireless enterprise solutions are allowing added functionality without making managers' lives harder.

Security

It becomes apparent that with any medium or large size business, having so many dispersed channels of information constantly logging into and out of the centralized data architecture creates a sensitive security issue. Mainly, these issues center on remote encryption, access authentication and user verification.

In addition, many IT managers fear that a migration to wireless would leave the access point open to hackers or wardrivers (people that drive around with a laptop and wireless card searching for exposed wireless networks to gain access to). But the same managers, while resisting implementation of wireless enterprise strategies for fear of breaches in security, are allowing employees to use their own mobile devices on the company network, creating an even greater risk.

There are several robust enterprise-level security packages offered today for wireless implementation: Certicom's Movian, SecureSmart's Perfigo Inc. and the Trusted Mobility Suite from Trust Digital, just to name a few. Many of these applications have strong Policy Decision Point (PDP) and Policy Enforcement Point (PEP) functionality--keeping all those different devices in line and updating virus software and other critical updates from the manager's own wireless device, while maintaining security of information coming into and out of the data center.

Mobility and Disaster Recovery

One of the greatest strengths of a wireless team is its adaptability. This can be invaluable in times of disaster recovery. In 2003, a water pipe burst on Intel's California campus. 450 employees were displaced and 60% of workspace required major repair. Luckily, earlier that year, Intel had decided to convert to an 80:20 laptop to desktop ratio for its employees. After the flooding, the emergency team found that damage was minimized because the majority of the workforce had taken their computers home with them earlier that night. Within 48 hours, several groups including marketing, sales, logistics and e-business were up and running with phones and Internet access--some not having experienced any disruption of productivity at all.

This has similar implications in an enterprise environment. Wireless networks have been used in contingency planning for years now as the possibility that co-located, wired connections to remote data centers could be knocked out by the same event. Wireless circuitry redundancy for a network can mean the difference in business continuity.

Beyond backup wireless connections to remote data centers, it is even possible to rely on data replication in smaller, personal mobile devices in the case of an emergency. Since replication is bi-directional, it could even be possible to do a complete restore using the data stored on the employees' external devices. Obviously, this shouldn't be a primary contingency plan, but it is an added layer of protection in the fight against data loss.

Wireless Productivity and TCO 

It may be hard for traditionalists to embrace the concept of having a primarily offsite workforce. Bottom-line studies show that a mobile workforce is more productive, more reactive, and almost identical in TCO. It's a drastic shift from the 'bodies behind desks' mentality of accountability and communication hierarchies, but one whose numbers are hard to ignore. What started with the drive to add mobility to phone communications for employees is now reaching into the computing realm as well, with smaller, more powerful PDA's, tablet PCs, laptops and other devices, an office is quickly becoming something that is carried with you. With wireless enterprise management, the image of the IT tech chained to a cabinet of blade servers in a cold-room somewhere is over. The enterprise today knows how to communicate on its own, sending messages like the server-room temperature and current applications-in-use to mobile personnel.

Conclusion

What started with a demand driven by in-the-field sales teams has reached all the way to the IT department. The ability for wireless communications and content delivery are reshaping business in a way never seen before. Anywhere/anytime access to Web and company data facilitates a business world that doesn't have to wait for answers. With more robust enterprise security packages, managers can implement wireless applications without worrying about exposing sensitive data. Hotspot proliferation is at a fever pitch. It's a wireless world--free your enterprise.