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Juniper Networks is expanding its Simply Connected networking portfolio with new products aimed at the growing bring-your-own-device, or BYOD, trend, an increasing concern in businesses that other networking vendors also are addressing.
Junipers new offerings include new service gateways, wireless-access points and greater endpoint-security features. The goal is to make securing and managing the growing number of mobile computing devices entering the work environment easier for businesses, according to Alex Gray, senior vice president and general manager at Juniper.
“IT managers are trying to cope with the influx of mobile devices into the workplace, Gray said in a statement. Juniper’s holistic approach advances security, simplifies the user experience and expands device support.
The rapid adoption by consumers of smartphones and tablets is fueling the BYOD push. Gone are the days when businesses could issue corporate laptops and mobile phones for employees to use on the job. Workers now are demanding that they be allowed to access the corporate network, data and applications with their personal devices, which can help boost productivity but also creates management and security headaches for IT staffs.
Various surveys over the past year have shown that while many businesses are accepting the BYOD trend, they are doing so grudgingly. A Mimecast survey in April found that while 47 percent of respondents find the consumerization of IT important to the enterprise, 21 percent said BYOD has been a risk, and another 26 percent said their companies dont allow employees to use their own devices for corporate tasks.
In another survey, Cisco Systems found that 75 percent of IT managers in the United States say new rules and policies are needed for security and device use. However, 48 percent of respondents said their companies would never authorize employees to bring their own devices, while 57 percent admitted that some employees use personal devices without consent.
However, a survey by Avanade found that about 60 percent of companies are adapting their IT infrastructures to deal with the consumerization of IT.
Networking vendors are aggressively expanding their portfolios to help businesses address the consumerization of IT. Hewlett-Packard in April unveiled new offerings, including a mobile apps store to enable businesses and service providers to distribute mobile versions of company applications. In March, Cisco introduced new tools for what the company called a holistic approach to BYOD. Most recently, Enterasys Networks officials said that in June, they will start selling their Mobile AIM appliance designed to make securing and managing mobile devices on the network easier.
Alcatel-Lucent and Extreme Networks also have made recent announcements related to BYOD.
Juniper officials said their new offerings, announced May 2, also take a holistic approach to BYOD. They include the SRX550 services gateway, which combines security, routing and switching in a single high-performance form factor for medium and large branch deployment, and the SRX110 gateway, another consolidated security and networking platform for enterprise and commercial small-branch environments.
Juniper also is adding Access Control Service/UAC and Secure Access Service/Secure Sockets Layer VPN to its Junos networking operating system to ensure the integrity of devices and to provision security for devices running Apples Mac OS and iOS operating systems and Googles Android OS. The company also is updating the AppSecure feature in Junos for the entire SRX Series product line for greater enforcement of application security and control based on the user rather than the device. This will allow for more consistent policy enforcement based on the user, regardless of the location or device.