Modern IT resources can be said to be ubiquitous, and can even be said to be a necessity for the survival of individuals or businesses.
With the popularity of remote working, many enterprises have employees spread all over the world, and the IT infrastructure of enterprises needs to ensure that these remote employees can always be reached. In addition, IT systems do not just run on laptops, but also need to be extended to different types of devices and operating systems. Although it is not easy to enable employees to work anytime, anywhere, this is the IT goal that enterprises are pursuing now.
So what are the elements of ubiquitous IT resources? This article lists four elements of modern IT resources, namely cloud services, mobile devices, security and identity.
1. Cloud service
The Internet has enabled global connections anytime, anywhere, but successful connections do not equal business output.
Enterprises need to ensure that internal applications can be accessed over the Internet, preferably through a browser, so that users can connect to and use enterprise applications from any device in any location.
In addition to internal applications, enterprises can also use SaaS-based application ecosystems, including solutions such as Feishu, Alibaba Cloud, and Salesforce, and these applications can also be accessed on the public network.
Platform-as-a-service (PaaS) and infrastructure-as-a-service (IaaS) are good options for businesses that need to build or manage IT applications and infrastructure, and can be used remotely regardless of location.
2. Mobile devices
Ubiquitous IT resources certainly need to support mobile users. Such users typically use small smart devices such as mobile phones and tablets. Although mobile devices are also equipped with browsers and can also work on the mobile network, using native applications on mobile devices may bring a better user experience.
Third-party applications usually have mobile clients, but many internal enterprise applications do not support mobile clients. Therefore, in order to improve office efficiency, enterprises can consider creating mobile internal applications at an appropriate time. In addition to display and network issues, mobile applications can help enterprises cover mobile users and allow IT resources to truly cover all areas.
3. Security
The availability of IT resources anytime and anywhere means the risk of hacker attacks from another perspective. Ubiquitous IT resources must be secure, which means that enterprises must set security policies at the network and application layers to ensure that key resources are protected by firewalls and are only open to users with access rights.
In addition, enterprises should enable the application's core security features, such as SSL encryption. Mobile users are at greater risk of device theft, so mobile devices also require encryption. Only by embedding security policies into the IT architecture as early as possible can enterprises ensure that IT resources are available remotely while having the required security.
4. Identity
One of the most critical elements of ubiquitous IT resources is the availability of user identities across the IT infrastructure. Users don't want to use different credentials to access all services, and administrators don't want to manage directories in different services separately.
However, standard legacy directories like Microsoft Active Directory and OpenLDAP are not readily available. Enterprises need a core directory service that can support different types of identity services, identity providers, and identity management platforms. For example, third-party identity management vendors, whose main goals are standardization, compatibility, and openness. Ningdun identity directory service is developed on this basis, which is suitable for the current directory service needs of enterprises and after going to the cloud.
In conclusion, modern IT resources should support anytime, anywhere access by various users in the enterprise. For end users, anytime, anywhere access to IT resources should not be limited by location and device. For administrators, anytime, anywhere access to IT resources requires leveraging cloud services, mobile apps, high-level security policies, and a unified identity system.