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LAS VEGAS – VMware, whose software resides in virtually every data center in the world but who also wants to become a player inside enterprise office PCs, released some new features for its Workspace ONE platform March 21.
The Palo Alto, Calif.-based virtualization software maker claims that this is the first and only “intelligence-driven digital workspace” designed to improve user experience and enable predictive security across an IT environment.
New feature No. 1 is Workspace ONE Intelligence, a cloud-based service that combines aggregation and correlation of users, apps, networks and endpoints data.
Feature No. 2 is the Workspace ONE Trust Network, which combines data and analytics from Workspace ONE with a new network of trusted security partner solutions to deliver predictive and automated security.
Lastly, feature No. 3 is Workspace ONE AirLift, a new Windows 10 co-management app designed to help organizations modernize their approach to PC lifecycle management (PCLM).
A New Intelligence-Driven Digital Workspace
Most IT companies contend that business intelligence in the form of new-gen apps and cloud services is foundational to a smart, automated and secure enterprise. However, organizations have struggled to gain visibility across all end users, devices and applications, because the data is spread across many systems and tools. This lack of visibility most often results in poor user experience, greater operational costs and a lack of proper security controls, VMware said.
Workspace ONE Intelligence combines aggregation and correlation of users, apps, networks and endpoints data, and it features a decision engine that uses the data to provide actionable recommendations and automation.
Capabilities of Workspace ONE Intelligence include:
- Integrated Insights bring together actionable information and recommendations for the entire digital workspace across all endpoints, apps, networks and user experience into one comprehensive view. Integrated insights pinpoint what’s working and what’s not in the environment, including monitoring application performance, and offer tangible recommendations that IT and development can easily act on.
- Insights-Driven Automation powered by a Decision Engine helps customers automate remediation rapidly across their entire digital workspace. Gone are the days of analyzing multiple timely decisions across several stand-alone tools. With the decision engine, IT can create rules to automate and optimize common tasks, such as remediating vulnerable Win 10 endpoints with a critical patch and setting conditional access controls to apps and services at the group or individual level. Automating alerts, notifications and remediation steps enable improved employee self-service to eliminate time spent on issues such as battery changes or answering helpdesk tickets that get in the way of employee productivity. With the decision engine, organizations can create rules to automate remediation across their entire environment including workflows with other third-party services, such as ServiceNow or Slack.
Connecting Security Silos to Improve Data Visibility
When organizations are forced to manage endpoint remediation and access management with multiple disconnected solutions, visibility across the ecosystem is limited and vulnerabilities are bound to slip through the cracks.
This is why VMware launched the Workspace ONE Trust Network, which combines security capabilities currently available in Workspace ONE with those of VMware’s new security partner network. By extending Workspace ONE Intelligence and its application programming interfaces (APIs), VMware security partners will be able to share and correlate threat data with Workspace ONE, to give joint customers deeper insight in their digital workspaces.
Carbon Black, CrowdStrike, Cylance, Lookout, McAfee, Netskope and Symantec are the initial partners who will integrate their security solutions with Workspace ONE as part of the Workspace ONE Trust Network.
Updating Windows 10 Management
To deliver an effective workspace for all their employees, companies are now preparing to transition legacy Windows management models to an updated approach. VMware claims that Workspace ONE offers the only unified endpoint management (UEM) platform with integrated Intelligence that supports all stages of the Windows 10 PC lifecycle–from onboarding to retirement–and providing a modern approach for any management task.
So VMware added Workspace ONE AirLift, which enables co-management of Windows 10 PCs alongside Microsoft System Center Configuration Management (SCCM). AirLift’s co-existence with SCCM allows customers to speed and de-risk transition efforts by migrating PCLM tasks, such as device onboarding, patching, software distribution and remote user support, to a more cost-efficient, secure and cloud-based modern management model.
This enables organizations to move to the new model without replacing SCCM or requiring costly PC and SCCM server upgrades.
Additional Workspace ONE features include:
- Simplified Mac Adoption: The new Workspace ONE client for macOS delivers a consistent experience as employees switch between OS platforms. Using Workspace ONE, employees can access all apps from their macOS device, including virtual Windows apps.
- Extended Security for O365 Apps: Workspace ONE now integrates the Microsoft Graph APIs to give IT O365-specific security features such as new Data Loss Prevention (DLP) controls, as well as continuous device risk monitoring that cuts off O365 access instantly if risk increases. Customers can enable vital business data is secure while increasing O365 adoption and delighting employees with simple access that bridges the gap between the O365 ecosystem and other work apps.
- VMware Boxer with Intelligent Workflows Empower Employee Mobile Moments: New mobile flows surface context-based actions VMware Boxer secure email. This enables users to complete tasks across many business applications–such as Salesforce, Jira or Concur–without leaving the Boxer email app.
- VMware Cloud on Azure VDI Beta: VMware announced a beta for VMware virtual desktops with Azure infrastructure in partnership with Microsoft. Horizon Cloud on Azure VDI will expand upon VMware’s support for published applications on Azure that was previously announced.
For full Workspace ONE pricing and packaging information, including details on the new Workspace ONE Enterprise package, go here.
Availability and Pricing
Workspace ONE Intelligence is now generally available worldwide and included in the new Workspace ONE Enterprise package. Horizon Cloud on Azure VDI is expected to be available in over 40 global regions in Q2 of fiscal year 2019. Prospective users can sign up for the beta program here.