I love the ability to provide people with technology to make their lives easier. Through the use of on-premises Configuration Manager (SCCM), I can make people’s work lives easier by centrally managing their computer so they don’t have to. Things like:
Deploying operating systems
Deploying software/applications
Updating software/applications
Managing virus protection
Providing remote support when needed
SCCM allows me to manage all my domain computers from one place, the Configuration Manager Console. As long as a user connects back to VPN or stays on-site, everything works perfectly.
What if I need to help a user connect to email with their phone? No problem! I can help troubleshoot. What if they are having trouble connecting to work resources from a home computer? Easy! Let’s help them connect via VPN or a method to “phone home” to our systems.
Being a system administrator I spend a lot of my time trying to think of ways to keep IT within the company’s tech umbrella. On of the most important aspects for me in IT has been my ability to control and provide technology for the business. As you can imagine, my world has been radically changed by workforce adaptation of the cloud and mobile devices. We no longer have a “work” computer that stays at work or a “home” computer that stays at home; moreover, our cell phones function as a computer these days. Since we have the ability to connect, from anywhere, to our e-mail, calendar, messaging, and documents--and essentially do everything we could from the office, we are truly mobile.
However, what if the user simply likes their own computer better than what the company provides? What if the user wants to use their own computer all the time and never use a company-issued one? This seems like a very strange scenario - but is definitely one that needs an answer, as we continue to see it happening. While this may not be a real world scenario for everyone, a variation of this is likely to take place for everyone. The industry has been using two terms for quite some time: bring-your-own-device (BYOD) and bring-your-own-computer (BYOC). While BYOD should be nothing new to us, it’s popularity is bringing rise to BYOC. What would we need to have in place for a company to allow everyone to bring their own computer?
We would need a way to centrally manage them—a way to put them under our umbrella. Our wish list to manage any device would look something like this:
Deploy software/applications
Update software/applications
Apply policies
Inventory hardware and software
Protect corporate data
Corporate wipe device
Does this list look familiar? It should! It’s very similar to the SCCM list above! However, our new list is dependent on one thing: the ability to do this anywhere.
Enter Intune. Intune, part of the Enterprise Mobility Suite, is Microsoft’s cloud-based Mobile and PC Management solution.
The good part?
If you don’t currently use SCCM you don’t need to invest in new infrastructure to use Intune. It lives in the cloud!
The better part?
It’s flexible! If you already have SCCM you can leverage Intune by integrating the two together. Doing so provides you the ability to leverage SCCM’s unique features: operating system deployment, power management, server management, and custom reporting.
The best part?
Intune is incredibly agile. Updates become available quickly and new features are being rolled out incredibly fast.
As businesses continue to evolve the hardware provided to their workforce, things like globally available MDM, MAM, application deployment, and updates management become more important. These help us categorize a product like Intune and are important to a business running securely and effectively. However, the best way to understand a product like Intune is what it gives to the user: freedom. Freedom for the user to use devices of their choosing and remain productive, yet secure, wherever, whenever, and however they’d like!
Would you like to find out more about Intune & Endpoint Manger? Learn how you can manage & protect your devices, apps, & users with Endpoint Manager.