Page 26 - FCW, July 2017

MOBILITY
NETWORKS AND THE FUTURE OF MOBILITY
More flexible networks hold the key to increased security and employee productivity.
SPONSORED CONTENT
BILL ROWAN
VICE PRESIDENT
OF FEDERAL SALES, VMWARE
AS PART OF the huge shift to mobile technology, agencies have been tackling the challenge of accommodating—and securing—a variety of devices against
a variety of threats. Agency IT leaders have come to understand they can decide on the applications to which an employee has access based on the platform they’re using, which opens a world of possibilities.
For example, employees might have access to one set of applications on their desktop computers and another on their tablets or smartphones. This approach leads to a better internal security model and more productive employees when they’re not at their desks.
To that end, some agencies are moving toward a more virtual desktop infrastructure. Most of them have a combination of virtual and physical desktops. Interestingly, as more agencies move to cloud-based Software as a Service (SaaS)—using Microsoft’s Office 365, for example, to deliver email and productivity tools to their employees—they are opening the door for additional VDI opportunities because they no longer need to host applications on their desktops or servers. Agencies can also reduce the complexity and cost of desktop PCs because those cloud-based applications only require a network connection.
Although agencies are recognizing there isn’t any one place where applications must reside, it must be secure regardless of whether it is on premises or in the cloud. Companies are addressing their customers’ desire to maintain control over their own data by supporting SaaS, which also makes it easier for employees to access applications when they’re not in the office.
However, as agencies build new applications with cloud in mind, the problem with legacy applications becomes more pronounced. Such apps make it difficult to see the savings the cloud can deliver and they create interdependency
issues. Agencies often want to move an application to the cloud, only to find it’s tethered to another application that may have been written 15 years ago and can’t easily be moved.
It will take a great deal of effort and recoding to modernize some of those legacy applications. Once that happens, though, cloud and mobility technology will have an even greater impact on agencies’ missions.
Looking Within
Security remains a primary concern. The threats today are found both outside and inside of organizations. Agencies should be building policies and processes to address those threats, but technology can also help.
Last year, the Director of National Intelligence said the government should construct networks similar to the way it builds submarines. They should compartmentalize them so that if there is a breach, they can close off that area without taking the entire network down. That is one of the goals software-defined networking is moving toward.
Over the next several years, that technology will become as commonplace as cloud is today. It will be the default framework for building an infrastructure. Software-defined networking lets agencies extend their networks from on premises workloads to public cloud workloads—and even extend them to help manage the mobile devices their employees are using.
Most software-defined networking solutions also work with any platform, which means agencies can use multiple companies’ technology and build a truly heterogeneous environment. This approach gives agencies all kinds of flexibility they never had before, including the ability to support a more productive, mobile workforce.
Bill Rowan is Vice President of Federal Sales at VMware.
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