What is Unified Endpoint Management

Unified Endpoint Management (UEM), in general, is software that allows you to manage a fleet of mobile devices, PCs, and other ‘endpoints’ from a single management interface. It’s one of the software solutions to help companies meet legal compliance, increase cyber resiliency, and lower management time and costs.

Why does the company that creates backup and disaster recovery software pay special attention to this area? You will find out in the article below.

At the outset, it is worth noting that Unified Endpoint Management (UEM) is crucial for the optimization and centralization of endpoint management, mainly in terms of data security. This solution is most often found in enterprise-class companies (in 2019 large enterprise segment was responsible for over 74% of the overall revenue share of UEM applications).

What’s more, according to Grand View Research report:

The global unified endpoint management market size was valued at USD 2.75 billion in 2019 and is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 32.2% from 2020 to 2027.

This global demand for UEM solutions will only be higher because of the emergence of the BYOD trend, COVID-19, and numerous cyber-attack increases.

What causes the increase in UEM adoption among enterprises?

A fundamental problem with endpoints, i.e., mobile devices, laptops, and PCs used by company employees, is that they are one of the critical areas of IT infrastructure vulnerability. It means that they can be an easy access point for cyber criminals. That’s a real challenge for administrators.

The growth of the UEM solutions segment, in general, is driven by technological development, namely: the growing adoption of network components, Internet of Things (IoT) devices, and endpoints. What’s more (and less optimistic) is also an increased risk of cyber threats and the need to manage endpoints in the existing complex IT environment.

It is worth emphasizing that attackers can exploit vulnerabilities in infrastructure or digital ecosystems and use them to launch a cyber attack through endpoints. This issue has become so much more relevant because nowadays, employees are more mobile than ever, but the consciousness of cyber threats is still low. The most common problem, for instance, is that employees connect to internal networks from outside the office and from endpoints anywhere in the world.

What are the main reasons for companies implementing UEM?

• Implementation of policies that allow personal devices to access organization data. For example, to improve employee productivity (BYOD).
• Improving the security of data sharing on different devices (Enterprise File Sync and Sharing).
• Facilitating the adaptation of enterprises to stringent government regulations and rules regarding data management (mainly in the banking, financial, and telecommunications sectors).
• Enabling IT administrators and security administrators to perform advanced auditing and reporting functions, which helps meet GDPR compliance requirements.
• The growing popularity of heterogeneous devices or mobile devices that use networks other than the organization’s network.
• Resource reduction through unified endpoint management.
• Increasing the organization’s security level by securing and implementing company resources and applications on any device from one console.
• Lowering the risk and costs associated with managing multiple systems devices – unified endpoint management works across multiple platforms.

What is the scope of UEM activities?

The most popular classification assumes that the scope of UEM includes such areas as:

• Network Configuration Management,
• Application Management (applications can be deployed, updated, tracked, and removed from the target device),
• Content Management (full control over sharing data with secure way),
• Identity and Access Management (user authentication),
• Security Management – inventory tracking, remote wipe,
• BYOD Containers.

Differences between MDM, Enterprise Mobility Management, and UEM

The EUM is a natural step in evolving a family of enterprise mobility management software. Previously, we had software such as:

• Mobile device management (MDM – which mainly concerned with remote control over the device or tracking.
• Enterprise mobility management (EMM) – adds application and content management to MDM and supports BYOD by creating containers that separate corporate and private content.
• EUM – extends the scope of operation with the latest security rules and end device use cases, supporting wearables and IoT.

Data protection for desktops and laptops

The guarantee of the security of company data stored and processed on end devices, such as laptops and desktops, also falls within the scope of UEM. Unfortunately, in this case, it is often limited to prevention, which will not work when data is lost or encrypted. Learn more about Storware solution for endpoint backup [HERE]

If the essence of EMU is to manage data safely, why not guarantee data recovery when the device or the entire organization is locked? Storware provides centralized protection of data stored and processed on end devices by the Continuous Data Protection (CDP) principle. What’s more, the available functionalities include:

• Deduplication, compression, encryption (in transfer and at rest), and versioning,
• Automatic synchronization,
• Self-service restore,
• Instant restore to local PC or the original location,
• Cross-Account migration of files,
• Fast search allows you to find any file from any device and more!

Summary: The Importance of Endpoint Security

Organizations have long recognized the need to provide robust and comprehensive endpoint protection to secure access to corporate networks and data.

Today’s digital workspace requirements challenge IT administrators to secure corporate networks while facilitating end-user access and functionality. The rising BYOD trend has led to “Shadow IT” in some organizations.

Employees often connect to corporate resources from various devices using unsecured home or public Wi-Fi hotspots. If connections are not protected with a robust VPN, sensitive corporate and customer data may be at risk of sniffing, ARP spoofing, DNS hijacking, and/or MITM attacks.

For this reason, the preventive systems available in RPA software do not always work in such scenarios. Therefore, a reliable backup is often your last option to recover your corrupted data and continue running your business.