When it comes to merging the private world of corporate teams and the freedom of today’s mobile devices, there’s a lot of growing pains to overcome.  Finding a meeting ground for these two aspects of the private and public cloud is a challenge that needs to be addressed, for privacy and security reasons, among other levels of justification.  There are several companies, large and small, working towards a hybrid cloud solution as it pertains to workplace mobility, and Zenprise looks to challenge an entire industry with its multifaceted approach

An enterprise security and management service, Zenprise has years of experience helping companies administer their servers.  With iPad tablets and smartphones becoming the tech jewelry of the savvy businessman, demand is quickening around workplace mobility.  Applying much of what it’s learned from server management, Zenprise has hit the mobile space at full speed, launching a three-pronged solution to the public/private cloud conundrum.  At the core of this new solution is the Zenprise Secure Mobile Gateway (SMG), which enforces some fancy black- and white-listing tactics for employee owned devices.

What first caught my attention about the new Zenprise offering was its availability across all the major mobile platforms, right out the gate.  No early versions for iOS, with later plans for Android, and later still plans for WP7 and BlackBerry.  From the days of working with servers, Zenprise recognized the future need for mobile security, having early solutions that incorporated BlackBerry smartphones in particular.  That foresight is evident in many aspects of the new SMG, which really looks to offer security around existing interfaces and manifestations of mobile economies and marketplaces.

“Enterprises across all verticals have been struggling with the consumerization of IT and trying tokeep pace with consumer adoption of smartphones and tablets.  Now we are seeing the next wave – the consumerization of applications, which is creating a whole new management concern,” said Jayaram Bhat, CEO of Zenprise.

“Zenprise’s visionary approach in supporting enterprise mobility continues to enable our customers to meet these challenges with innovative, market-leading functionality that addresses mobile application management and security.”

From a security standpoint, Zenprise’s white listing and black listing offer two types of management solutions for administers to extend to the team.  Instead of putting the security controls at the device level, Zenprise will look at an app and recognize if it has malware.  If so, that app can be shut down, or blocked from accessing the company network with the black-list solution.  It’s a common case for many mobile device users–malware’s sneaking in from even reputable brands, and this solution seeks to remedy a company’s concern over their employees’ activity potentially threatening the network.  End users still have total freedom over their app use, but certain protective measures come into play as needed.  White-listing, on the other hand, pre-approves apps to be used on the network, and is an offering that appeals more to company-owned devices.

The mobile security gateway is among the first services of its kind, creating a check point for the enterprise network.  Zenprise likens it to airport security, where it checks devices and allows them access through to the network as long as everything checks out.  There’s a list of properties a device should have, which could include an OS update pushed through by Google, or malware-free apps.  If there’s something amiss with a device, they can be blocked from accessing the network.  For an IT manager that has to send out a company-wide email asking employees to update their smartphones, the SMG acts as a supplemental security measure that protects the network from forgetful employees.  Take the recent case of Android for example.  After a vulnerability was discovered on Android’s OS, Google pushed out a patch fix on an OS update.

The last piece of Zenprise’s release is an enterprise app store, which is essentially a curated interface for prevalent apps a businessperson could use.  It’s a perk that provides recommendations for different areas of the enterprise, from sales to accounting.  But it also speaks to the long-term goals Zenprise has around making a safe haven for the principles of a hybrid cloud.  This is becoming a popular format for cloud companies to apply to the consumerization of IT, including VMware, which recently launched the Horizon App Manager, and SAP, which had a determined mobility message throughout its Sapphire event last week.

There are certainly some brute-force tactics at work with Zenprise’s SMG, but it’s a necessary evil when it comes to securing virtual services and mobile devices.  The concept behind Zenprise is to leave end users the freedom to use whatever apps they want on their device, while still giving corporate heads control over network security.  It works with the existing setup we already have, requires little extra effort for end users in particular, and clearly anticipates the needs of the mobile workers of tomorrow.