(July 31/2012) Some people seem to live on their smartphones. Such is the case at the University of Pittsburgh, where many of its employees rely heavily on the devices to access information, connect with other staffers and manage their calendars.
Richard McIver, senior systems administrator for the university’s Financial Information Systems (FIS) group, says that when Pitt transitioned away from BlackBerrys for about 200 of its staff, ensuring security became a greater concern.
“As we moved to iOS, we knew we needed a good way to secure it,” says McIver. “We wanted to ensure that all devices used by the staff would have policies for passwords and full device encryption, and we needed the ability to remotely wipe the device if it were lost or stolen.”
McIver says FIS began using the AirWatch mobile device management (MDM) software in January 2011. For all smartphones and tablets, the IT department logs in via the web to access the cloud-based AirWatch management portal, adds a username and ID, and enrolls the device with AirWatch MDM. That process applies the department’s policies to the device.