Aruba simplifies IT management of employee-owned mobile devices

Aruba Networks in the week unveils software designed to safeguard company knowledge and networks when accessed by employee-owned mobile purchasers, whether or not laptops, tablets or smartphones.

The software, ClearPass Policy Manager, offers a collection of modules that allow enterprise IT teams streamline provisioning, inventory, security and management for private devices used for work functions, a trend typically dubbed “bring your own device” or BYOD. Aruba’s software is meant to form it easier to securely manage a way additional varied consumer atmosphere, particularly in mobile deployments, and to provision secure network access, a feature missing from a minimum of another mobile device management (MDM) applications.

ClearPass Policy Manager is bought preloaded on a server appliance or as a VMware virtual machine instance. the appliance will work with the foremost mobile and laptop operating systems within the enterprise: iOS, Android, BlackBerry OS, OS X and Windows seven. The new product combines code from 2 Aruba acquisitions, Amigopod, for guest access and management, and from last December, Avenda Systems, whose mobile management software is that the heart of Policy Manager.

The new providing includes the FreeRADIUS open supply software, for authentication, authorization and accounting, however the Policy Manager can also work with an existing AAA/RADIUS infrastructure.

Policy Manager consists of the core application, and 4 separately licensed modules: Onboard, a self-service mobile provisioning portal for employees; Profiler, that creates a close inventory of every device; OnGuard, that could be a Network Access management application, together with the quarantine and cleanup of compromised devices; and Guest, for registering and managing guest access to the network.

One extra cloud service, ClearPass QuickConnect, will automatically configure wired and wireless network settings for private devices.

The actual provisioning is about up earlier by IT directors operating with ClearPass Policy Manager, that lets them set a variety of policies for devices by device kind, OS, user teams and alternative variables.

Users then will register their devices for access on their own, via an internet portal, and have them automatically configured for such enterprise-standard protections and services as 802.1x authentication, a VPN consumer, Exchange ActiveSync, and machine IDs or certificates. When users decide to log into the company network for the primary time, they are redirected to the portal, where an application wizard walks them through the configuration method. Once that happens, these personal devices become uniquely visible to IT.